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A watershed moment in
India
By B S Nagaraj
NEW
DELHI - India is soon to embark on a project that has
few parallels in the subcontinent. On the drawing board
is an ambitious proposal to link all the country's major
rivers with each other in a bid to end water scarcity.
Although not a new idea - it was first proposed
in the 1970s but given up due to financial unviability -
the project will be the first of its kind in terms of
sheer physical size, costs and the extent of benefits
that are expected to flow from it.
The project
provides for transfers across the length and breadth of
the country linking 31 rivers. It will have two broad
components - the Himalayan part with 14 river links, and
the southern peninsula part with 17 river links.
Understandably, the investment required is
massive. At present prices, it is estimated that the
cost will total a staggering US$150 billion, which is
one-fourth of India's GDP and twice its foreign exchange
reserves.
It is not clear how long it will take
to complete the project. Projections have been made from
16 years to 35 years. But the benefits that will accrue
from the project are already being talked about. The
river link plan is expected to create an additional 160
million hectares of irrigated land. Foodgrain production
will increase from 210 million tonnes to 450 million
tonnes and 35 megawatts of power will be generated. One
million jobs will be created for the next 10 years as a
national waterway comes into being to complement rail
and road networks.
The range of spinoffs is
clearly as huge as the project. The Indian government
appears unfazed by the size of the huge job that it has
given itself. Unmindful of the skepticism voiced by
economists and environmentalists alike, the project is
set to be kickstarted into mission mode some time this
month. A dynamic, young politician, Suresh Prabhu, has
been put in charge of a team of experts drawn from a
range of specializations.
The big question
everybody, including those in government, is posing,
though, is where will the investment come from. Are
domestic financial institutions capable of such massive
funding? Or should India borrow from international
agencies like the World Bank?
For the moment,
the government prefers domestic funding. It is wary of
knocking on the doors of international agencies because
they would closely monitor the impact that a project of
this nature would have on the environment. Options that
are being talked about include the formation of a
special purpose vehicle which is financed purely by debt
capital, special levies and user charges. People's
participation in the project through the purchase of
infrastructure bonds could be another source.
But given the need for the induction of such a
large investment, not many are convinced that the
government can make do entirely with domestic funding.
Much of the finance would indeed have to come in the
form of soft loans from international funding agencies
like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
What could prove worrisome is that funding from
these agencies would put an estimated burden of over
$100 on every citizen, apart from the costs of interest
payments. A scenario entailing special levies and user
charges for irrigation and bulk industrial use could
also push up inflation.
The river link project
in a way bucks the trend in India. Of late, the emphasis
on the irrigation front is to plan small and plan local.
Authorities are increasingly planning the revival of
water bodies, rejuvenation and desilting of tanks, and
recharging of ground water by both modern and
traditional methods.
It is therefore not
surprising that the river link project has drawn a
welter of protests from the green brigade. Water experts
find the project unworkable because all rivers in India
have peak flows more or less around the same time -
between July and October. This will mean that storages
have to be created, which in turn means more dams and
reservoirs. Massive human displacement and unknown
environmental damage are feared.
A case in
point, as often cited by green activists, is the failed
project in the erstwhile Soviet Union which proposed the
diversion of Siberian rivers to feed deficient rivers in
Kazakhstan and Central Asian republics.
The
vision of this project is undoubtedly grand, but India's
track record in executing big projects, especially in
the water sector, is far from satisfactory. Several
irrigation projects have lain incomplete for years, even
decades, but little has been done to complete them.
To plan for something as adventurous as
inter-basin transfers when the government has been
unable to resolve bitter water sharing disputes among
neighboring states is fraught with danger.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
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