Did you know water is the key to life? Ask the minister
DAVINDER KUMAR

NEW DELHI, DEC 3: What does one do at the high profile international conference to discuss serious and raging issues of dams, environment and power? Learn the basics of water and its usefulness in life.

This is precisely what the learned technical experts did at the International Conference on Hydropower and River Valley Development. During the valedictory function of the two-day conference in the Capital, it was Union Minister for Water Resources C P Thakur and Minister of State for Environment and Forests Babu Lal Marandi who took the experts on a guided tour of history, geography and philosophy of water.

Consider this: ``Life has evolved from water,'' Thakur said in a revealing tone to the participants as he took off on his tour in Hindi. ``Water is important in life. We die, if there is more of it. We still die, if there is none of it,'' Thakur added.

Then come some basic issues. The conference hall-turned-classroom is in rapt attention. ``What does the nation require? Healthy and physically fitpeople. For this we require good food policy. But food production depends on a good agriculture policy. And agriculture depends on a good water policy.'' So water is important.

``How will you eat your food when there is no water?'' quizzed the teacher, oops, the honorable Minister. Next comes environment. Guess why we need to conserve environment? ``If man wants to survive, he will have to keep the environment in order.'' Dams follow environment in Thakur's extempore speech. Narmada is of course the first on priority.

``Narmada Dam protestors should think that if there is some benefit in delaying the construction. If there is no benefit they should not do it. After all when such highly qualified people are constructing the dam, they must be doing if after giving it a thought,'' Thakur simplified.

Almatti follows next. ``What can we say about sharing waters with our neighbours when our own states are fighting each other tooth and nail,'' the Minister said with a boisterous laugh. The classroom joinedhim. The tour ended on population explosion. ``We must keep a check on our numbers. It is nearing one billion,'' he concluded his key note address.

Minister of State for Environment and Forests Babulal Marandi played safe. He just spoke verbatim from his prepared speech in Hindi. This time, a refined and High School text book version of importance of water.

``We cannot imagine life without water,'' Marandi started off. For internationally renowned experts of hydro-electrical engineering he had a major information to part with. ``Electricity is generated by the speedy flow of water. This is very clean and is also known as green power,'' he said.

Again some basics. ``Water resources are unevenly distributed in the country. At some places, water is available in abundance, there are places which do not have even drinking water.''

``Some regions suffer from floods every year, whereas some face the drought situations,'' he continued. Then it was bit of history. Sample this: ``India has a history of rivervalley development. Immediately after independence multi-purpose projects were launched in this direction. Since 1970, thermal power projects were given priority.''

The international conference came to close. Some important classroom notes: We evolved from water. Water is important to life. Electricity can be produced from water. Some regions in the country have lots of water, while rest have very little of it. Finally, the growing numbers of Indians has to be controlled -- we are reaching one billion!

Deep Thoughts

C P Thakur