Introduction

The most important natural resource on the planet earth is water and rivers are the major
sources of water. Water sustains all aspects of life such as domestic, agricultural, industrial, etc.
It plays a major role in town planning because settlement always starts near a source of water. The
foundation of both agriculture and town planning is being laid on water. Several agencies including
United Nations and the World Bank have claimed that there will be a huge water crisis in the near future
in developing countries like India. According to a discussion paper by the energy and resources institute
(TERI), India sustains nearly 17 percent of the world’s population but unfortunately, only four percent of
water resources are available for such a highly populated nation. With the rapid growth in population in
India, the demand for water resources will increase alarmingly [figure1]. United Nations agencies have
also claimed that this scarcity of water will, in fact, accelerate in the near future thereby creating serious
problems for mankind and the environment. The ground water level is also declining at the rate of 10
cm per year. Almost 75 percent of surface water and groundwater resources are contaminated due to
increasing discharge of wastewater into the water bodies. This has also lead to drainage blocking which
has resulted in riverine floods in the areas where river plane is occupied by buildings. On the other hand,
water scarcity has become the biggest problem of all times. The government is inadequate in dealing
with repetitive cycles of flood and drought occurring at the same time in different parts of the country.
There is water scarcity in certain regions and water surplus in the other regions in our nation. There is
an urgent need to adopt a highly efficient, effective and sustainable water program that can help us to
use the available water resources in a judicious and effective way. The water from surplus rivers can be
interlinked with the water scarce rivers so that there is a proper supply of water to fields, villages, towns
and industries round the year without causing any harm to our environment.

Fig. 1: increase in global annual water demand from 2005 to 2030 [source: water resource group, statista 2015]
The Indian inter link river project (ILR) has been proposed as a solution by national water development
agency (NWDA) of India. River linking is a project of linking two or more rivers by creating a network of
manually created canals, and providing water to the land areas that does not have river water access
and reducing the flow of water to sea using this means. It is based on the assumptions that surplus water
in some rivers can be diverted to Deficit Rivers by creating a network of canals to interconnect the rivers.
History of interlinking

• 1972- Ganga Cauvery Link Proposed By Dr. K.L.Rao.

Dr K L Rao, the irrigation minister observed that floods in the year 1965, 1966, 1967, in north i.e.
Assam, West Bengal and Bihar whereas the entire southern including part of Maharashtra suffering
from drought. He came up an idea of carrying the floodwater to south through the system of dams and
canals water conceived.

Dr. Rao worked on this theory and in the year 1972, he revealed the plan for transporting the
surplus water from Ganga right up to the Cauvery in south. His plan envisaged a Ganga-Cauvery link
taking off near Patna and passing, enroots, through the basins of the some, the Narmada, the Tapti, the
Godavari, the Krishna, and the Pennar, before joining the Cauvery upstream of the grand Anicut. Based
on some earlier work in the central water commission, proposed a national water grid for providing
navigation and ameliorating spatial disparities between river basins. The 2,640 km link involved
withdrawal of 60,000 cusecs of flood flows from the Ganga for about 150 days a year. That is, to transport
60,000 cusec of monsoon flow in Ganga from near Patan for 05 months in a year to south via a series of
dam and canal making use of existing rivers enroots.

• 1974- “Garland Canal” Proposal By Captain Dastur.

Captain Dinshaw j. Dastur, an engineer who was also a trained pilot. His plans were impressive enough
that friends, notably Homi Bhabha, got him an introduction to Jawaharlal Nehru. His proposal (1977)
envisaged construction of two canals – the first 4200 km. Himalayan canal at the foot of Himalayan
slopes running from the Ravi in the west to the Brahmaputra and beyond in the east; and the second
9300 km garland canal covering the central and southern parts, with both the canals integrated with
numerous lakes and interconnected with pipelines at two points, Delhi and Patna.

• 1980- Ministry Of Water Resources Frames The National Perspective Plan (Npp).

The ministry of irrigation and the central water commission have formulated a national perspective for
water development. The broad approach adopted is as follows:
existing uses have been kept undisturbed;
 i. Normal water development under the existing legal and constitutional framework is assumed to
take place fully by the turn of the century;
ii. The perspective envisages developments within the frame work of all the existing agreements
between or amongst the states within the country as well as existing treaties with the
neighbouring countries;
iii. As the storage sites are limited on account of topographical and other resources, the plan is
based on optimum development of available storage sites including development of new
storages, big and small, wherever feasible. Inter-linking of the major rivers is envisaged;
iv. The plan envisages multipurpose and multi-objective development of water resources, namely,
irrigation, flood control, hydro-power generation and navigation;

• 1982- the national water development agency (nwda) set up to carry out pre – feasibility studies.

Nwda carried out water balance studies of 137 basins/sub-basins and 71 diversion points. It also carried
out toposheet studies of 74 reservoirs & 37 link alignments. Based on these studies, nwda identified 30
links (16 under peninsular component & 14 under himalayan component) for preparation of feasibility
reports (frs). Out of these, fr of 14 links under peninsular component and fr of 2 links (indian portion)
and draft fr of 7 links under himalayan component have been completed. Field surveys & investigations
for the remaining links under himalayan component are under progress except one link namely kosi-
mechi which lies entirely in nepal.

• aug 15, 2002- president abdul kalam mentions the need for river linking in his independence day
speech.

The passing observation of the president mr a.p.j. abdul kalam on the eve of independence day 2002,
set the momentum for interlinking of rivers, hitherto a dormant idea. This prompted an advocate to
attach the copy of kalam’s speech with a public interest litigation (pil), which he had filed for the cleaning
of yamuna and also as regards the water-sharing dispute between karnataka and tamil nadu. Thus in
august 2002 for the first time, the issue came up in the supreme court. Justice b.n. kirpal, the then chief
justice of india, who was heading the bench responded so enthusiastically that he converted the pil into
an independent writ petition and issued notices to the centre and the states for interlinking of rivers.

• dec 2002- govt. Appointed a task force on interlinking of 37 rivers led by mr. Suresh prabhu. The
deadline was revised to 2016.

A task force on interlinking of rivers under the chairmanship of shri suresh p. Prabhu, the then member
of parliament, lok sabha was constituted by the ministry of water resources on december 13, 2002. The
task force submitted its report in april 2004, and was wound up with effect from 31.12.2004. Based on
the recommendations of the task force, appropriate follow up action have been taken in respect of
guidance on norms of appraisal, bringing about speedy consensus amongst the states and prioritization
of links. Accordingly, the memorandum of understanding (mou) between the party states were signed
for preparation of detailed project report (dpr) of ken-betwa link, damanganga - pinjal link and par-tapi-
narmada link. The dpr for ken-betwa link and damanganga - pinjal links have been completed by national
water development agency (nwda) and submitted to the party states.

Need for inter river linking:

Large variation in rainfall and subsequent availability of water resources in space and time.because of
this variability of available water, floods and drought coexist in our country in same time and space.
(kerala, t.n and south karnataka is facing drought while rajasthan, gujarat, assam reeling under floods)

This scheme is divided in four major parts.

1. Interlinking of mahanadi-godavari-krishna-palar-pennar-kaveri,
2. Interlinking of west flowing rivers, north of mumbai and south of tapi,
3. Inter-linking of ken with chambal and
4. Diversion of some water from west flowing rivers

Reasons & motivation of inter linking

Regional rainfall variation

• the rainfall over the country is primarily orographic, associated with tropical depressions originating in
the arabian sea and the bay of bengal. The summer monsoon accounts for more than 85 % of the
precipitation.

• large parts of haryana, maharashtra, andhra pradesh, rajasthan, gujarat, madhya pradesh, karnataka
and tamil nadu are not only in deficit in rainfall but also subject to large variations, resulting in frequent
droughts and causing immense hardship to the population and enormous loss to the nation.

• the water availability even for drinking purposes becomes critical, particularly in the summer months
as the rivers dry up and the ground water recedes.

• regional variations in the rainfall lead to a situations when some parts of the country do not have
enough water even for raising a single crop. On the other hand excess rainfall occurring in some parts of
the country create havoc due to floods.
Futuristic demand of irrigation

• irrigation using river water and ground water has been the prime factor for raising the food grain
production in our country from a mere 50 million tonnes in the 1950s to more than 200 million tonnes
at present, leading us to attain self-sufficiency in food.

• irrigated area has increased from 22 million hectares to 95 million hectares during this period.

• at present estimate the "ultimate" irrigation potential of the country being stated as 113 million ha.

Increasing population and food demand

• the population of india, which is around 1000 million at present, is expected to increase to 1500 to
1800 million in the year 2050 and that would require about 450 million tonnes of food grains.

• for meeting this requirement, it would be necessary to increase irrigation potential to 160 million
hectares for all crops by 2050.

To control floods & droughts

• floods are a recurring feature, particularly in brahmaputra and ganga rivers, in which almost 60 % of
the river flows of our country occur.

• flood damages, which were rs. 52 crores in 1953, have gone up to rs. 5,846 crores in 1998 with annual
average being rs. 1,343 crores affecting the states of assam, bihar, west bengal and uttar pradesh along
with untold human sufferings.

• on the other hand large areas in the states of rajasthan, gujarat, andhra pradesh, karnataka and tamil
nadu face recurring droughts. As much as 85 % of drought prone area falls in these states.

Irrigation - by linking of rivers vast amount of land areas which does not have otherwise irrigated and
unusable for agriculture become fertile.

Flood prevention – by creating network of rivers flood & drought problem can be greatly avoided by
channelling excess water to areas that are not experiencing a flood or are dry. This works similar to canal
system in netherlands to channel excess water from sea.

Generation of electricity - with new canals built, feasibility of new dams to generate hydroelectric power
becomes a possibility.

Navigation - newly created network of canals opens up new routes and ways and routes of water
navigation, which is generally more efficient and cheaper compared to road transport.

Higher gdp growth - by interlinking rivers, there will be a boost and increased employment in agricultural
sector, power, transportation; construction etc. Interlinking can increase the gdp by 5to 6 %.
 Business opportunities – it is expected to generate large-scale business opportunities in manufacture of
mechanical equipment’s, earthmovers, stone crushers, power shovels, other transportation vehicles,
etc. In addition, this project would also require large scale manufacturing of construction materials such
as an estimated 56 million tons of cement and 2 million tonnes of steel etc.

Drinking water - majority of our population will get drinking water; special emphasis is that all the cities
connected by golden quadrilateral project will get drinking water.

Revenue- the government is expecting revenues from benefits of navigating through waters, increased
tourism, joint ventures, private initiatives and cess on waters.

What could be the possible positive implications/advantages of ilr plan?

1. It will most likely lead to improved and expanded irrigation i.e. the project claims to provide additional
irrigation to 35 million hectares in the water-scarce western and peninsular regions.
2. The river interlinking project claims to generate total power of 34,000 mw (34 gw).
3. It will lead to ground water recharging.
4. The inter-link would create a path for aquatic ecosystems to migrate from one river to another, which
in turn may support the livelihoods of people who rely on fishery as their income.
5. It will contribute to flood and drought hazard mitigation for india
6. Any multipurpose storage reservoirs in upstream countries, such as nepal and bhutan, would facilitate
energy generation and other benefits.
7. It also appears to promote national integration and a fair sharing of the country’s natural water wealth.
8. It will unify the country by involving every panchayat as a shareholder and implementing agency.
9. Provide for enhancing the security of the country by an additional waterline of defense.
10. Provide employment avenues for more than 10 lakh people for the next decade.
11. It will most likely eradicate the flooding problems which recur in the northeast and the north every year.
12. Solve the water crisis situation by providing alternative, perennial water resources.
13. The large canals linking the rivers are also expected to facilitate inland navigation too.
14. It aims at increasing food production from about 200mn tones a year to 500mn tones.
15. It will most likely boost the annual average income of farmers, from the present $40 per acre of land to
over $500.

Adverse/disadvantages effects of inter-river linking plan

 What could be the possible adverse effects of inter-river linking plan?

 River linking project involves multifaceted issues and challenges related to environmental, economic,
ecological, legal, political and social costs. It has potential for disastrous and irreversible adverse after-
effects which has been comprehensively discussed below:

Ecological costs:

1. Water scientists and environmentalists have remarked that the water flowing into the sea is not waste.
It is a crucial link in the water cycle. With the link broken, the ecological balance of land and oceans,
freshwater and sea water, also gets disrupted
2. It is feared that diversion of water from the brahmaputra and the ganges, which provide 85% of the
country’s fresh water flow in the dry season, would result into an ecological disaster.

Economic costs:

1. As this project is of massive estimated cost, a long term planning and a sound financial simulation are
required to meet the standard for such proposals.
2. The huge expenditure of the project and the maintenance costs associated with the dams, canals,
tunnels, and captive electric power generation will involve huge financial burdens.
3. This may generate fiscal problems that are difficult to handle.
4. This certainly requires financial assistance from the private sector as well as global capital agencies.
5. Mobilization of global capital may ultimately entail the risk of destroying social welfare measures.

Environmental costs

1. It will result in massive diversion of forest areas and submergence of land leading to deforestation and
soil- erosion. (for example the ken-betwa link project puts in danger over 4,100 hectares of forest land or
8% of the panna national park).
2. There will be destruction of rivers, aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity, fisheries and groundwater
recharge.
3. Possible downstream impacts, salinity ingress, pollution concentration, and increased methane emission
from reservoirs are other adverse repercussions.
4. Scientists are also of the view that river diversion may bring significant changes in the physical and
chemical compositions of the sediment load, river morphology and the shape of the delta formed at the
river basin.
5. It could most likely create trigger points of natural disasters like landslides, earthquakes etc. As seen in
case of koyna dam and tehri dam.
 Legal costs:

1. Domestic and regional geo-politics play a pivotal role on the discussions on ilr. As of now, there is no
mechanism as of now to deal with matters concerning inter-basin transfers. There are also important
institutional and legal issues to be sorted out.
2. Each of the 30 schemes of the ilr is supposed to get through several statutory, legal and procedural steps.

Social costs:

1. Reconstruction and rehabilitation due to displacement is not an easy task as seen before.
2. The construction of reservoirs and river linking canals in the peninsular component alone expect to
displace more than 5, 83,000 people and submerge large areas of forest, agriculture and non-agriculture
land.
3. It is likely to create social unrest/psychological damage and cultural alienation due to forced
resettlement of local indigenous tribal community.

1. Ecological issues – major concern being the argument that rivers change their course in 70–100 years
and once they are linked, future change of course can create huge practical problems for the project.

2. Aqua life – a number of leading environmentalists are of the opinion that the project could be an
ecological disaster. There would be a decrease in downstream flows resulting in reduction of fresh water
inflows into the seas seriously jeopardizing aquatic life.

3. Deforestation –creation of canals would need large areas of land resulting large scale deforestation
in certain area.

4. Areas getting submerged - possibility of new dams comes with the threat that habitable or reserved
land getting submerged under water.

5. Displacement of people –as large strips of land might have to be converted to canals, a considerable
population living in this areas must need to be rehabilitated to new areas.

Political implications:

1. Water being a state subject, the ilr plan further complicates existing water sharing and management
problems between the riparian states.
2. Some of the ilr schemes have international implications, which may create strained relationship with
neighboring countries like bhutan, nepal and bangladesh.

Interlinking of rivers.
The indian rivers inter-link is a proposed large-scale civil engineering project that aims to effectively
manage water resources in india by linking 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 inter-link project has been split into three parts:

 A northern himalayan rivers inter-link component,

 A southern peninsular component and starting 2005, an intrastate rivers linking component.

the project is being managed by india's national water development agency (nwda), under its ministry
of water resources. Nwda has studied and prepared reports on 14 inter-link projects for himalayan
component, 16 inter-link projects for peninsular component and 37 intrastate river linking projects.

National river linking project in india (nrlp)

 the national river linking project (nrlp) is designed to ease water shortages in western and southern
india while mitigating the impacts of recurrent floods in the eastern parts of the ganga basin.

 the nrlp, if and when implemented, will be one of the biggest inter basin water transfer projects in the
world.

 building 30 links, 3000 small and large reservoirs, and 12500 km of canals to link 36 himalayan and
peninsular rivers to effect 178 km3 of inter-basin water transport.

 35 million ha of new irrigated area; 35 gw of hydro-capacity; navigation and flood control benefits.

 gestation period: proposed=2016; most likely=2050

 cost = rs 560,000 cr. At 2002 prices (us $ 120 billion); 1 - 1.5% of india’s gdp for the next 3 decades.

Current context:

Ken-betwa link project has been declared as national project by the government of india. Damanganga
– pinjal link project, par – tapi – narmada link project and mahanadi – godavari link projects have been
given a go ahead.

Present status of interlinking of rivers project – (press information bureau release)

 the government has said that the national water development agency (nwda) under the ministry of
water resources (mowr) has identified 30 inter-state river links (16 under peninsular component & 14
under himalayan component) for preparation of feasibility reports (frs).

 out of these, frs of 14 links under peninsular component and 2 links (indian portion) under himalayan
component have been completed.

The inter-link consist of two parts, a northern himalayan river development component and a southern
peninsular river development component.

Himalayan development. (national commission about ilr-1)

 the northern component would consist of a series of dams built along the ganga and brahmaputra
rivers in india, nepal and bhutan for the purposes of storage.

 canals would be built to transfer surplus water from the eastern tributaries of the ganga to the west.

 the brahmaputra and its tributaries would be linked with the ganga and the ganga with the mahanadi
river.

 this part of the project would provide additional irrigation for about 220,000 square kilometres and
generate about 30 gig watts of electricity.
Peninsular development. (national commission about ilr-2)

 first, the mahanadi, godavari. Krishna and kaveri rivers would all be linked by canals. Extra water
storage dams would be built along the course of these rivers. The purpose of this would be to transfer
surplus water from the mahanadi and godavari rivers to the south of india.

 second, those rivers that flow west to the north of mumbai and the south of tapi would be linked. The
water would be used by the urban areas of bombay and also to provide irrigation in the coastal areas of
maharashtra.

 third the ken and chambal rivers would be linked in order to provide better water facilities for madhya
pradesh and uttar pradesh.

 finally a number of west-flowing rivers along the western ghats simply discharge into the arabian sea.

 the peninsular part of the project would provide additional irrigation to 130,000 square kilometres
and generation an additional 4 gig watts of power.

The inter-links under consideration for peninsular component are as follows, with respective status of
feasibility studies:
 almatti–pennar link (feasibility study complete)(part 1)
 inchampalli–nagarjunasagar link (halted construction by telangana) (part 1)
 Inchampalli–pulichintala link (feasibility study complete) (part 1) merged with inchampalli–
nagarjunasagar link
 Mahanadi–godavari link (feasibility study complete) (part 1)
 nagarjunasagar–somasila link (part 1). It is remodelled as srisailam to somasila reservoir
via veligonda project tunnels (fag end of construction) to reduce the cost of the link
 Pamba–anchankovil–vaippar link (feasibility study complete) (part 4)
 Par–tapi–narmada link (feasibility study complete) (part 2)
 Parbati–kalisindh–chambal link (feasibility study complete) (part 3)
 Polavaram–vijayawada link (link canal constructed and partly in use with pattiseema lift) (part 1)
 Somasila–grand anicut link (feasibility study complete) (part 1)
 Srisailam–pennar link (link canals constructed and in use) (part 1)
 Damanganga–pinjal link (feasibility study complete) (part 2)
 Kattalai–vaigai–gundar link (feasibility study complete) (part 4)
 Ken–betwa link (feasibility study complete) (part 3)
 Netravati–hemavati link (part 4)
 Bedti–varada link (part 4)

Alternatives to indian river linking

1. Rainwater harvesting and conservation of water resources: changes in topography, soil system and
runoff flow pattern in a changing climatic environment is considered. Not only stored rain water but soil
erosion is also prevented.

2. Recharging ground water reservoir: skills have to be developed for arresting rain water where it falls
and allowing it to recharge these ground water reservoirs.

3. Large scale utilization of ground water in deltas: practically feasible and initiatives for bore well
development and irrigation needed with responsibility lying.

4. Community participation: approaches of reducing water consumption by the affluent in the cities and
reducing the wastage of water by the farmers in their field can be attempted.

way forward: nrlp has its fair share of positives and negatives. Though there are enough apprehensions
over the project but they are not backed by any comprehensive scientific evidence to it. Inter basin water
transfer is not a new concept.

Large direct benefits of irrigation, water supply and hydropower and indirect benefits navigation,
tourism, employment generation etc. Can be accrued in ilr program.
Formation of river basin authority for coordinated action and subsequent building up of consensus
among concerned states is prima facie needed. Legal provisions for implementation of ilr related to
rehabilitation and appropriate afforestation through campa is to be concurrently addressed.

It is essential that needed environmental safeguards such as comprehensive eia and sia are properly
implemented in a coordinated manner by various agencies. Therefore, strengthening and expansion of
cooperative efforts among the co-basin states and countries will foster co-riparian relationships.

India’s river linking project shows and promises a great concern for water conservation and
optimum use of available water resources. Undoubtedly, it is the need of the hour to have a water
mission like as irl, which will enable availability of water to the fields, villages, towns and industries
throughout the year post a comprehensive scientific assessment.

Conclusion

A task force has been constituted by the indian government to examine the project in depth at
various points of issue in fields of science, politics, economics and social sciences, also including two
stakeholders, one from water deficit state and the other from a water rich state. The issues that will be
addressed include, guidance for norms of appraisal of individual projects including their economic
viability, socioeconomic impacts, environmental impacts, and preparation of rehabilitation plans; to
develop procedures for unanimity amongst states; prioritize various projects; propose organizational
structures for executing the project; consider financing modalities for the project; and look upon the
international ramifications of the project. The targeted date for achieving the goal of the ilr project is
31st december, 2016 (ministry of water resources 2002).

The construction of dams, canals and tunnels should not be blindly done, the placement of these
things should be done by keeping in mind the impact it would have ecologically on a certain region.

With the rapid increase of demand for water and new technological advancements, the ilr
project seems to act as a boon for the nation. It will not only meet the water requirements of millions
people by providing water but would also reduce the problems people face in water scarce regions. The
water supply would be from regions having surplus water in the rivers to regions where water is scarce,
thus, equally and adequately fulfilling the needs of people across the nation.

But still even if the project is executed the water supply problem in vast regions of the country
would still be a point to ponder on as many areas of the country have vast deserts which do not contain
rivers in the vicinity to which they could be linked, thus, providing water in scarce regions would still
pose a challenge. Resource mobilization for such a large-scale project would be difficult, also, the scale
of the project may result in scarcity of some other resource within the nation.
 Reference

1. Inter basin water transfers. The australian experience. With the snowy mountains scheme. Water
resources consulting services australia. By geoff wright

2. Inter basin water transfer. Indian scenario. By ramakant parashkar. Director general national water
development agency, ministry of water resources, india.

3. Interlining of rivers - various issues in-volved.by dr. S.surya rao. Professor & head civil engg. Dpt.
Visakhapatnam.

4. River linking -s. Kalyanaraman.