What Will Indian Rivers Inter-link Project Bring!

Some of the major criticisms of the project are about its socioeconomic viability, environmental impacts, displacement and rehabilitation of affected people, the challenge of resource mobilisation, geopolitical constraints, as well as domestic political dynamics.

The National River Linking Project water transfers envisage easing the water shortages in Western and Southern India while mitigating the impacts of recurrent floods in Eastern India. It constitutes two main components - the links, which will connect the Himalayan Rivers, and those which will connect the Peninsular Rivers. When completed, the project would consist of 30 river links and 3000 storage structures to transfer 174 billion cubic meters of water through a canal network of about 14900 km.

The Indian Rivers Inter-link is a proposed large-scale project that aims to link Indian rivers by a network of reservoirs and canals and so reduce persistent floods in some parts and water shortages in other parts of India. The overall implementation of Interlinking of Rivers programme under National Perspective Plan would give benefits of 35 million hectares of irrigation, raising the ultimate irrigation potential from 140 million hectare to 175 million hectare and generation of 34000 megawatt of power, apart from the incidental benefits of flood control, navigation, and water supply, fisheries, and salinity and pollution control.

The rain across the very large nation is not uniform, the east and north get most of the rain, while the west and south get less. India also sees years of excess monsoons and floods, followed by late monsoons with droughts. This geographical and time variance in the availability of natural water versus the year round demand for irrigation, drinking and industrial water creates a demand-supply gap that has been worsening with India's rising population.

Proponents of the rivers interlinking projects claim the answers to India's water problem is to conserve the abundant monsoon water bounty, store it in reservoirs, and deliver this water - using rivers inter-linking project - to areas and over times when water becomes scarce. Beyond water security, the project is also seen to offer potential benefits to transport infrastructure through navigation, as well as to broadening income sources in rural areas through fish farming.

Inter-River Linking Project involves multifaceted issues and challenges related to economic, ecological, and social costs. IRL project has caused much anger and protest in our neighbouring nation, Bangladesh. It is grappled with fear that diversion of water from the Brahmaputra and the Ganges, which provide 85% of the country's freshwater flow in the dry season, would result in an ecological disaster.

There is an urgent need to take Socio-environmental concerns related to IRL Project so a very detailed hydrological, geological, meteorological and environmental analysis of the project would be imperative for the benefit of India.