Flood of nonsense

The current debate in India on the government's river linking proposal is occurring when the coalition in power at the centre is preparing to face general elections next year. On the issue of water, agriculture, food and energy resources' development and management, the coalition government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party could not have done much worse. The clearest evidence of under-achievement comes from the way the coalition managed the droughts of 2000 and again in 2002-3, and the way it is managing floods this monsoon. There has been a comprehensive failure to regulate releases from dams, to adequately forecast floods and to provide timely flood warning and relief. The river linking proposal is a way to divert attention away from real performance. The proposal found support in the suggestion made by the Supreme Court on 31 October 2002 without really going into the merits of the project, following rather a unscientific mention of the proposal by India´s scientist President in his speech to the nation on 14 August 2002. The supporting cast of the charade was made up of a gullible political opposition, uncritical (a section of) media and scientific community.

The events are unfolding at a rapid pace. The megalomaniac water resources establishment in India suddenly found a new reason to reassert its reason to exist. The emergence of the World Bank´s new Water Resources Sector Strategy where it has said that it is again time to back High Risk High Reward projects like large dams and long distance water transfer projects was, we are told, only coincidental. Suresh Prabhu, the former Power Minister from India´s right wing Shiv Sena Party who had to leave the Power Ministry last year following the his party leadership being unhappy with his performance, got what he thinks to be a fitting new role as Chairman of the Task Force for River Linking Proposal. His over confidence notwithstanding, it must be a unique event in the history of development planning, when all concerned authorities are swearing by the completion date of a project whose feasibility, even they admit, is yet to be established. Come to think of it, even the need and optimality of the proposal are yet to be ascertained.