Centre to shelve river-linking project

I found this news and am happy to share this. An environmental disaster has been avoided by the shelving of this muddle headed project.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Centre to shelve river-linking project
Spl CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI, Oct 5 — The UPA Government has decided to formally give a neat burial to the ambitious river-linking project, with Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest, Jairam Ramesh declaring that the project would be ‘human, ecological and economic disaster for the country’. The pronouncement comes on a day, when the Minister announced the decision to adopt river dolphins as national aquatic animal. The suggestion to adopt the River Dolphin, also better known as Gangetic Dolphins came from Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar.

“The suggestion to adopt it as national aquatic animal came from Bihar Chief Minister and we accepted it,” Ramesh said, briefing newsmen about the outcome of the meeting of Ganga River Basin Authority that was chaired by the Prime Minister.

The Environment and Forest Minister said that one of the criteria for measuring the revival of River Ganga would be return of river dolphins. Some 2000 of them are left in the country, he added.

They were found in large numbers before a few years. But now their number has come down considerably due to various human activities like fishing, poaching, construction of Farakka barrage in Ganges, sand mining in Kulsi River and massive deforestation.

The river dolphins are included in the schedule 1 of Indian Wildlife Act 1972.

Ganga River currently has about 600 of dolphins, while in Brahmaputra River, its population has gone down to 240-300.

Meanwhile, Environment and Forest Minister, replying to questions about the fate of the river linking project, indicated that it is going to be shelved. The Project has national and international ramifications. Bangladesh has already gone to UN, he added.

This is not physically possible to link rivers, he said, adding that smaller inter-basin transfers, however, could go on.

One of the erstwhile NDA Government’s flagship projects, river-linking project did not find much favour with the current regime. “Interlinking of rivers was a revolutionary step initiated by the NDA government BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy had said.

BJP-led NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee had mooted the idea of interlinking of rivers to deal with the problem of drought and floods afflicting different parts of the country at the same time. The programme aims at equitable distribution of water throughout the country to solve issues of irrigation and drinking water as well, Rudy said.

The original article can be found here:
http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/...=oct0609/at010

The Central Govt. shelved the river linking project, but the Andhra Pradesh Govt. now wants it.

Sabyasachi

CM for linking AP rivers
October 9th, 2009
By Our Correspondent
Hyderabad
Oct. 8: A day after the UPA government shelved the river linking project, the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, sang a different tune and said linking of rivers within the state could be useful.
The Congress-UPA government dumped the river linking programme, mooted by the former BJP-led NDA government, because of the AICC general secretary, Mr Rahul Gandhi’s vigorous opposition to it.
Mr Gandhi had said recently that the river linking programme was unwise and would create more harm than good. Following Mr Gandhi’s cue, the Union environment minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, had said the other day that the NDA-authored project was being dropped since it would cause a “human, economic and ecological disaster.”

However, Mr Rosaiah, who is in favour of river linking in the state, said that the young Congress leader might have been talking about linking of rivers across the country. “He may be referring to Ganga-Cauvery project which would benefit some states and harm others,” he said. Mr Rosaiah said the state government had envisaged linking of Godavari and Krishna in the state to save Godavari water from being let out into the sea. He agreed that there were differences of opinion on the issue and added that alternative ways could be explored for linking of rivers within the state.
In was in 1988 that the N.T. Rama Rao government tentatively started the inter-linking of rivers in the state by releasing Krishna waters from Pothireddypadu head regulator to Pennar Basin. The Krishna-Pennar rivers link was originally conceived during British rule.

There is also going to be a major link of Godavari and Krishna rivers through Polavaram project which is under construction. Mr Rosaiah can perhaps push his plans since Mr Ramesh had said the other day that the UPA government was not opposed to the inter-basin level river linking on a local basis. It was the former Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, who took the initiative to promote the ambitious national river linking project. The task force he deputed had said that if the rivers are interlinked around 160 million hectares of farm lands could be irrigated in the long run.
The task force had envisaged the project as involving a peninsular component and a Himalayan component. Under the peninsular component, a southern water grid was to be developed with 16 linkages and the Himalayan component involved conserving the flow of waters in the Ganga and the Brahmaputra and their tributaries.
In fact, while relinquishing power, Mr Vajpayee had requested Dr Manmohan Singh to continue with the river-linking project.

The original article can be found here in the Deccan Chronicle site:
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyder...-ap-rivers-069

The river linking idea keeps on resurfacing from time to time. This time it is going to drown 6400 hectares of forest land, a part of which is from Panna Tiger Reserve.

It is not just the drowning of forest land. Our present level of knowledge is not sufficient to predict the consequence of river linking. Millions of micro-organisms, flora and fauna are yet to be discovered and mapped. We have no clue about the impact of lowering of the water level in a river and increasing in another. Ignorance cannot be termed as bliss in this case as these are irreversible actions.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

River-linking project may affect Panna tiger reserve
PTI 13 December 2009, 06:22pm IST
NEW DELHI: Casting shadow over the fate of the upcoming Ken-Betwa river link between Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, environment minister

Jairam Ramesh has said that it would have bearing on the Panna Tiger Reserve.

"I was shocked to find that Panna Tiger Reserve is involved in the Ken-Betwa river link which is the only project (on inter-linking river) that has progressed so far," Ramesh said recently.

Ken-Betwa link will transfer excess water from Ken to Betwa through a 231-km canal. Only 18 km of the canal would be in Uttar Pradesh.

The critical observation by the minister has come close on the heels of the ministry's rejection of coal mining proposals from Adani Power Ltd and Maharashtra Coal Company as they were adjacent to Tadoba Tiger Reserve in the state.

"I have already intervened and rejected two coal mining projects near Tadoba Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra," Ramesh said indicating the course of action he is likely to take in the river linking project which threatens to submerge at least 140 hectares of land of Panna Tiger Reserve.

"The proposal for divergence of a chunk of land from Panna tiger reserve is yet to come up before the Environment Ministry. But it should not be given nod at any cost given the threat to the tiger habitat," wildlife expert P K Sen said.

He said it is the forest land in Madhya Pradesh that is going to be a casualty as out of 8,650 hectares likely to get submerged, 6,400 hectares are forest land and 2,171 hectares culturable land. Some of it falls under the Panna National Park.

The link to the source article in Times of India can be found here:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/h...ow/5333505.cms

A great news indeed.

The river restoration should be the priority now.