Interlinking of rivers project can save many in Bihar

The recent flood crisis in Bihar the destitute state of India has renewed the old debate of interlinking of river project in India. The project was formulated by National Water Development Agency of India and was aimed at two pronged points,

1) Himalayan River System
2) Peneninsular River development

Both the initiatives were targeted for generating hydroelectricity and tackling the water harvesting problems in India, but unfortunately the project was transferred into cold storage due to its appalling cost and lack of political will to do so.

Indeed the implementation of project was a Herculaneum task but once implemented and executed successfully would have saved the country from flash floods, draughts and acute electricity and power shortages. The traumatic file photographs of flood affected areas and its people serve as living example of how this could have been averted by the interlinking river project and though this is the first major incidence in propaganda on television and newspaper there will be thousands of more Bihars which will be devastated due to the apathy of political leaders towards the progressive work done for the nation such as interlinking of river project.

The project could have saved not only billions of worth property destroyed but on the other hand would have saved millions of lives ruined by the flood water of river Kosi. What happened in Bihar could have happened any where, with a tardy monsoon in hand the northern regions were expecting good harvest after along wait, instead they lost every thing with their washed away villages.

There are other cities also in line for such a kind of flash flood like Calcutta in the state of west Bengal which sits on the banks of river Hoogly or even the capital of the nation Delhi which is banked by river Yamuna. The failure of Sapta kosi dam in Nepal is no excuse to hide the essentials of interlinking river project for the country.

In its long haul of joining major rivers and their tributaries of the northern Himalayan rivers and southern rivers, stretching a mammoth 12500 km long maze of canals and tunnels the project covers all the draught and flood prone areas lining Nepal, Bhutan and major coastal cities of India as well, which means that the project could have proved to be a potent factor for distributing excess water to other parts of the country and hence prevented the contemporary Bihar situation or even Bihar like situation for other parts of the country.

Major rivers like Ganga, Brahamaputra, Godavari and all their tributaries were scheduled to be interlinked under this project but the political machinery failed to do so. Not long ago there was flood in Tamilnadu or even sometimes back in Gujarat. There is virtually no place existing in India which has not suffered drought or flood at some point of time still the contemporary government thinks that the country is not ready for such a project for reasons which are still ambiguous or does not concur with the practical and rational thinking of an individual.

When the dynamic climatic changes around the globe fail our weather forecast predictions, projects like “Interlinking of rivers”, become mandatory for a country like India which holds nearly four percent of freshwater of the world and is prone to varied degrees of flood and droughts.