The very existential contributor to human life on earth is water. Water is a transparent fluid which forms the world’s streams, lakes, oceans and rain, and is the major constituent of the fluids of organisms. Water covers seventy one per cent of the earth’s surface. Water on earth moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation and transpiration, condensation, precipitation and runoffusually reaching the ocean again.

WATER CRISIS IN INDIA

The rainfall of India is primarily associated with tropical depressions, originating in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The summer monsoon accounts for more than eighty five per cent of the precipitation. The uncertainty of occurrence of rainfall marked by prolonged dry spells and fluctuations in seasonal and annual rainfall is a serious problem for the country. Large parts of Haryana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh 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. This has been major cause of grief for farming community, which forms about fifty five per cent of the country’s population. 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 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 other parts of the country creates havoc due to floods.

RIVER LINKING DURING THE ANCIENT AGE

Linking of rivers is not an idea of modern times; indeed its roots can be traced back to some of the ancient civilizations of the world. All agrarian societies husbanded water resources by building dams over rivers and canals. Water storage through tanks was another mode of water usage.The ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans, Cholas, and virtually every civilization have built canals and dams to irrigate their farmlands.

RIVER LINKING IN THE MODERN ERA

In the modern era, the Colorado River Aqueduct (US), the National Water Carrier (Israel), the Cutzamala System (Mexico), and the as yet incomplete SouthNorth Water Transfer Project (China) are the examples of large national interbasin transfer (IBT) projects. They aimed at improving agriculture, alleviating floods, and improving drinking water to parched areas. Now India is likely to join this league by restarting its National River Linking Project (NRLP).

RIVER LINKING IN INDIA

The main reason in most parts of India for the shortage of water for drinking and irrigational purposes is that there is no viable system of water management. If a proper system of water management is adopted, we can also be spared the fury of annual floods that cause havoc in certain areas in India. The Indian rivers interlink is a proposed project that aims to link Indian rivers by a network of reservoirs and canals and so reduce persistent floods in some parts and water shortage in other parts of India .Linkage of rivers has been proposed as a solution for this problem since the independence. The first idea of river linkage was proposed by Sir Author Cotton who was famous for the completion of ‘Dowleswaram Barrage’ on Godavari river.
Though, the idea interested then Governor General , Lord Delhousie, it didn’t go forward due to want of funding. Then, after Independence, there has been no tangible progress achieved on linkage of rivers due to the lack of attention from the governments. Now, as a happy news, the National River Linking Project (NRLP) is aimed at constructing thirty river links. One of the important objectives of the project is to divert the flow of two large rivers of the country Ganga and Brahmaputra by interlinking them. If this idea comes true, the NRLP would be four times larger than China’s ongoing multydecade project and largest river linking project in the world.

SURPLUS RIVERS
TO DEFICIT AREAS

As we realized, the plan of the project, Inter Basin Water Transfer (IBWT), it aims to Increase the food grain production, mitigate floods and droughts and reduce regional imbalance in the availability of water. So, It targets the Brahmaputra and Ganga, particularly their northern tributaries: Mahanadi, Godavari and west flowing rivers originating from the Western Ghats are found to be surplus in water resources. If we can build storage reservoirs on these rivers and connect them to other parts of the country, regional imbalances can be reduced significantly and lot of benefits by way of additional irrigation, domestic and industrial water supply, hydropower generation, navigational facilities etc will occur.

THE ELIXIR OF LIFE

Water is the elixir of life. All life depends on water. Hence, it is a very precious thing. We should join hands to give more attention to water problem, otherwise in the near future, even our existence may be jeopardized.