MS Menon
Many states in this country are reeling under an acute drinking water shortage and facing drought-like situations. Large parts Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka are currently in the throes of a severe water crisis. The impact of a harsh summer is already rippling across the land, with failed hydroelectric plants affecting industrial production, and agricultural activities threatened for want of irrigation water. Water trains have been pressed into service to carry thousands of litres of water from the Krishna river to the parched district of Latur to quench the thirst of millions over there.
According to the Ministry of Water Resources, presently, water levels are significantly lower than their 10-year average in the nationally-monitored 91 water reservoirs. Experts are of the view that climate change, coupled with El Nino, a weather phenomenon caused by higher sea temperatures, is the main cause for extremely hot summer seasons and the resultant water scarcity in the country.
With increasing demands of water, conflicts are arising between States and communities are claiming their rightful share of water. Water-endowed states often cite the ‘Harmon Doctrine’, asserting absolute sovereignty over water flowing through their territories, and have even passed Assembly resolutions, invalidating earlier agreements signed with their neighbouring States. This has recently happened in Punjab regarding the Sutlej-Yamuna link canal. Maharashtra, apprehensive about water disputes turning into law and order problems, has imposed prohibitory orders in some villages in Latur.
This crisis is the culmination of years of water mismanagement on the mistaken belief that India is a water-rich country. It is the result of missed and missing opportunities in harnessing the highly skewed seasonal and spatial distribution of monsoon flows which occurs over a four-month period. It is also a consequence of petty hydro-politics clouding long term vision, thereby, necessitating ad hoc solutions.
More than 90 per cent of the annual flows in peninsular rivers and 80 per cent of such flows in the Himalayan rivers occur during the monsoon months from June to September. Since these few months account for most of the rainfall and consequent water availability, the capacity to hold water in reservoirs and spread out its release over the year can mean the difference between managing devastating floods and droughts and routinely falling prey to them.
This year, a good monsoon is expected soon after the harsh summer. However, we are not prepared to address even heavy monsoon flood situations, since we do not have large dams across major rivers like the Brahmaputra to absorb and regulate the floods.
From past experience within the country and abroad, water professionals have been insisting on river linking projects to enable inter-basin water transfers, from surplus to deficit basins, to even out the variations of water availability and allow for optimal utilisation. Convinced of the proposal, even though the Union Government had set up a National Water Development Agency to study and implement a river linking project more than three decades ago but the latter has not made much progress due to stiff opposition from some State Governments and self-appointed environmental activists .
It is high time that the river-linking project be taken up on a war footing instead of permitting it to crawl and slip into the shadows of history. Transfer of water by train, is a short-term solution but the long-term solution lies in having a network of rivers and canals in the country to address the impact of climate change and provide succour to the millions who suffer from the ravages of floods and droughts stalking the country every year.
