People habitually misuse water and electricity publicly. As soon as water starts flowing in the link canals, people will begin drawing from it illegally. They will hook the power lines to run pumps, puncture the canal and put pipes below or breach the canals recklessly. Equitable distribution will be hampered and the regions will not be in a position to get their allotted quota.

Linking of river basins is not an easy proposition. It is a large complex programme of water management. It involves technological, environmental and legal issues. River water sharing, therefore, has to be monitored by the Union government with the help of the army. But the vastness of the canals will make it practically impossible to monitor the passage of water.

The economics of river linking also is enormous. It would involve roughly around us $104 million to us $125 million. We do not have resources to this extent. Banks will hesitate to advance financial help as recovery of loans from the beneficiaries will be difficult .

The routing of the canals will also eventually run into rough weather, as there will be no consensus about the course of the canals among the states and people. The other contention is pollution of the rivers. Ganga is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Interlinking all the rivers will transport polluted water from the Ganga to other moderately clean rivers.

In the present context, considering all the loopholes in the river linking scheme, it is impossible to come to a settlement on sharing of water. The project will unnecessarily be delayed. Instead if we opt for watershed development projects, we can effectively harvest rain water. India receives moderate to good rains (about 800 to 1000 millimetre every year). If we undertake watershed development instead of linking rivers, we can comfortably survive with a minimum of one crop and adequate drinking water in the lean periods also.

Watershed development has the following advantages:

• For watershed works, the cost per hectare (ha) of irrigated land is around Rs 10,000 as against Rs 75,000 per ha in the river linking scheme

• While watershed schemes can be completed in five years, linking of rivers will take up to 15-20 years to complete

• Millions of labourers in India will get employment in watershed projects for the next five to six years. But as canal work involves heavy machinery or equipment, it is not a labour intensive job.

We have to, therefore, give up the false notion of linking rivers and save money and time by adopting the simple, and most effective, method of watershed development.

MALLIKARJUN SHETTY
Karnataka