Presentation and Discussion - Thinnai
Event: A presentation
of the history and background to the issue of interlinking of rivers
in India, followed by discussion; organised by THINNAI
Date: 29th February 2004
Resource Person: Ms. Sangeetha Sriram, representing RiverForLife
Network at this forum
The group that gathered
for this discussion consisted majorly of those people who knew enough
to take an anti stand to the interlinking, but wanted to know more,
and of those who knew nothing and were there to understand the issue.
Ms. Sangeetha presented
her research and study of the interlinking of rivers project of the
Government of India to the gathering: what is the interlinking project
and what are the Government's promises with the project, the social,
environmental and financial reasons for an increasingly forceful protest
from experts and others who have studied and understood the ramifications
of such a project, the sensible approach to water management and what
is to be done now.
Briefly, ILR is Government
of India's project for linking 37 rivers through 30 links, dozens of
large dams and thousands of miles of canals. The project aims at transferring
water from water-surplus areas to water-deficit areas. Such a project
would actually incur astronomical costs (read debts) without delivering
any of the promised benefits; in fact, quite the opposite. The project
promises control of floods and droughts, increase irrigation and meet
the growing food needs of our increasing population. A study of river
basins, river systems, the civilisation that is built around it show
that dams are not the answer to floods and droughts. In too many cases
these actually cause un-natural floods and droughts and multiple other
social and environmental damages. A look at agriculture and irrigation
and traditional water management in India would also show the absurdity
of this project, and reveal sensible, feasible approaches to water resource
management that have been followed by our traditional communities for
centuries. Some water management and harvesting programmes followed
in different parts of the country were also seen.
In the discussion that
followed, the group tried to understand the technicalities of interlinking
of rivers, the very premise that interlinking should be fought was questioned
on grounds that there should be alternatives presented. Such alternatives,
like the different water management initiatives were also discussed.
The major issue that emerged
were that people are not aware of the plans of the Government or the
far reaching consequences of such plans. The people need to be told
not about task forces and policies but about how this would affect them
in the short and long run, which is what they would relate to. So,
- how is it that more and more people can be made aware of what is happening
and
- what can be done now to stop the Task Force from arbitrarily going
ahead with such plans?
It was decided that a group
be formed in Tamil Nadu that would work with the above agenda of collecting
information, facts etc, present it to people and gather more and more
crowd campaigning against the linking of rivers.
Contact Person: Ms. Sangeetha Sriram,
sangeetha_sriram@hotmail.com.
Links: www.riverlinks.nic.in
| www.dams.org
| www.rainwaterharvesting.org
There is a national debate on 'interlinking
of rivers' going on at riverlink@yahoogroups.com,
which has about 1000 people including interested citizens, eminent people
both supporting and opposing ILR. If you would like to participate in
the debate, you can subscribe by writing to riverlink-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.