Sustaining River Linking

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Interlinking of the rivers of the country as ordered by the Supreme Court recently poses a serious challenge to the policy makers and the Government. While financial, technical and the people's problems related to this venture are extremely difficult, the issue of sustainability after its execution becomes an important agenda. The book, on an optimistic note, assumes that all hurdles would be crossed and a system will be put on ground.

Though, sustainability depends on many aspects of such a gigantic exercise, the book here deals with the issues of dam safety and operation and maintenance. The above two topics have been brought into focus in this book, as they are critical to the long- term survival of this project. The book will be useful for everyone concerned with water, its demand, supply. distribution and consumption.

DR. V.P. JAUHARI (b. 1949) had his education from Allahabad University, Punjab University and London School of Economics (LSE), UK. Though a serving bureaucrat he has extensive work experience in the field of Environmental Management at state, national and international levels. He headed the Ministry of Environment & Forests in the Govt. of A.P. and the State Pollution Control Board. He has also worked in the Ministry of Environment & Forests, GOI, apart from working as head of intergovernmental body, sponsored by UNEP, called South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme (SACEP) at Colombo. He has worked as consultant to many UN bodies and has many publications to his credit. Till recently he was heading the Ministry of Agriculture and at present he is Principal Secretary in Revenue Department in the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh.

Water is needed in all aspects of life. With Win increasing population, requiring full security for a billion, the per capita availability of water is decreasing over a period of time. The situation is compounded by accelerated growth of water pollution, making availability of fresh water still more difficult. Incidences of drought and floods have been increasing with the passage of time due to ecological imbalance and climate change. A comprehensive management of water, therefore, becomes very essential in the present scenario. In order to achieve this, Supreme Court directed the Union Government to consider linking of the country's rivers within a specified timeframe. The total cost of the project, as per estimation, is going to be Rs.5,60,000 crores, which has to be internally generated by Government. Shri Suresh Prabhu, former Union Minister, has been appointed as Chairman of the Task Force for interlinking of the rivers. According to him, this will have multiple benefits, such as controlling floods, fighting drought, producing additional 250 million tonnes of food grains, irrigation of additional 150 million hectares of land and generating 35,000 MW of power.

Obviously such an ambitious task will involve construction of storage reservoirs, canal systems, transmission system and distribution systems. The construction of dams has been a big activity in the country since our independence and is still continuing. Dams would constitute an important part of this ambitious activity. If the activity has to be successful, the sustainability of the dams also needs to be assured. Although sustainability of a dam depends on many variables, yet this book deals only with few important variables, such as dams safety and operation and maintenance of the system. However, in addition to ecological aspects, issues of a state's share of water, water quality, and public acceptance of such an exercise also will have to be addressed at an appropriate level.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages