Drawing lines in water

People do not fight for zar, joru aur zameen (gold, women and land) anymore. Gold is stowed away safely in banks, contemporary women refuse to be treated as war trophies and purchase is the only way left for acquiring more land. Today it is jal, water, that agitates people, for as yet water does not have an agreed upon market value and so no one knows how much one is losing if someone else uses water or how much one is gaining by depriving others of water. In the event, there are strong pressures for grabbing all that is available.

The latest on this is the anger brewing in Karnataka over the Hogenakkal water supply scheme of the Tamil Nadu Government. The Hogenakkal reservoir falls on the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. On the Cauvery river, at an estimated cost of Rs 1,334 crore, with monetary assistance from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the Hogenakkal scheme, it is hoped by its proponents, would supply 160 million litres a day to 40.4 lakh people in the dry districts of Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri. Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi laid the foundation stone for the project on February 26. On March 27, the Tamil Nadu Assembly adopted a resolution, urging the Centre to extend “full cooperation and help” in executing the project, citing an agreement of 1998 with Karnataka that allows Tamil Nadu to execute the Hogenakkal project. The Centre has wisely kept its silence.

With 1,869 billion cubic meters of surface water and replenishable ground water, India is reasonably rich in water resources. The only problem is that only 60 per cent of this water, that is, approximately 690 billion cubic meters of surface water and 432 billion cubic meters of ground water, can be put to beneficial use. But even this cannot be currently used because each state through which a river passes or which is included in its watershed demands a larger share of the water.

No chief minister dares allow another state the use of a larger portion of the water from a river. Perhaps the only time a chief minister was brave enough to allow another state to take away a major chunk of water was in November 1963 when Dwarika Prasad Mishra, then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, allowed Gujarat, led by chief minister Balwantrai Mehta, to take away a larger share of Narmada waters for constructing a dam that might have been the precursor of the present Sardar Sarovar project. The Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha rejected the generosity of the chief minister and began the long battle of denying Gujarat the use of Narmada waters.

... contd.

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