Most environmentalists around India heaved a sigh of relief on Friday when Pranab Mukherjee, the country\u2019s Finance Minister, did not say a word about the plan to interlink India\u2019s rivers, nor allocate any money for that purpose. There had been fears that the ill-conceived, potentially catastrophic and long-buried scheme may get a new lease of life, thanks to a recent Supreme Court judgement asking the government to interlink India\u2019s rivers.<\/p>\n
The mega plan to interlink 30 rivers around India has been on the drawing board at least since 1980, and was a particular favourite of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a former Prime Minister who is from the Bharatiya Janata Party. So it was expected that the Congress Party, now in power, would not support the scheme. But still, the judgement by a three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia had created apprehension. Now the environmentalists think they can rest easy for at least a year.<\/p>\n
The highly ambitious but controversial plan seeks to transfer water from surplus to deficit areas in the country, and irrigate 35 million hectares, as well as generate 34,000 megawatts of hydropower and improve flood control. In the 27 February judgement, the judges said they hoped for \u201cspeedy implementation\u201d of the project.<\/p>\n
Environmentalists have been opposing the project for decades because it plans to tamper with the natural drainage and water flow pattern of large parts of India, and the country\u2019s experience with similar but far smaller schemes has been largely catastrophic in the long run. The floodwaters that devastate one of the most fertile parts of the country year after year, in the northern part of the state of Bihar, take months to drain out because the natural slope of the region has been altered by ill-planned construction of irrigation canals. Today, in most of the region, canals and rivers actually flow above the level of the surrounding land, so that the water has nowhere to go when the canals and rivers overflow. Many environmentalists fear a similar situation if the river interlinking project is implemented anywhere.<\/p>\n
Proponents of the project, who went to the court to force the government into implementing it, say that the project cost is negligible when compared to the potential benefits. But many environmentalists have pointed out that there is no true estimate of the project cost. A decade ago, the direct cost was estimated at 5600 billion Indian rupees ($ 112 billion). Of the 30 projects proposed under the plan, only one has a detailed project report \u2013 the plan to interlink Ken and Betwa rivers, both near the centre of the country. Environmentalists point out that there has been no valuation of the many ecosystem services provided by these rivers today \u2013 providing irrigation water, fisheries, supporting aquatic life, providing drinking water during the dry months and so on \u2013 in the project report. Nor is there any plan to do so for any of the other 29 projects. Environmental economists assert that all the projects would prove unviable if the services provided by the rivers to the ecosystems today were taken into account, as they should be. So far, India\u2019s environment ministry has refused to clear the Ken-Betwa proposal. The plan will lead to submergence of 8,650 hectares of forests, parts of which are in the Panna National Park, a protected area. Despite this, the Supreme Court in its judgement said the Ken-Betwa project should be taken up on priority.<\/p>\n