Interlinking of rivers was mooted in the 1970s by the then irrigation minister KL Rao. The Supreme Court, in February this year directed the government to set up a panel to implement the project but nothing really has happened so far

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) which has been giving the anxious public small doses of ‘deficit’, “poor and inadequate rains”, “below normal” and other similar assurances on the monsoon conditions, has now come to terms to accept that the ‘drought’ is a confirmed event, and the third in the last one decade. The earlier ones being 2002 and 2009.

It is not that anyone wants to blame the IMD for no fault of theirs, if the monsoon does not come in time or in adequate quantity and spread all over the country evenly!

Five states of the Union have been identified as the worst affected so far, which are Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat. As a first step, the government has announced a Rs2,000 crore relief package as well as a 50% diesel subsidy for these rain-starved states.

Already, there is the fear that the rains in August and September also many not be adequate either, due to the anticipated El Nino effect. This weather phenomenon is likely to affect the weather patterns in many parts of the world, including India.

However, if there is a favourable rainfall in the ensuing months, the situation is likely to affect the farmers. But the actual impact will be known only after the season ends, according to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.

Since 60% of the land under cultivation in India is rain-fed, the monsoon vagaries affect the country in a huge way. The lack of rains also affects hydel power production which will have a domino effect on farmers not being able to use electric pump sets. But as a large number have standby diesel generators, they may be able to get some relief.

It may be recalled that in the 1970s, the then irrigation minister, KL Rao had mooted the idea of interlinking the rivers. In fact, such a proposal was the brainchild of late M Visvesvaraya who conceived and prepared the plan, more than 100 years ago, to form a national water grid.  But that was never given its due importance by the British fearing that such a interlinking of rivers would bring about nationalistic feelings among the Indian masses. This great report is still collecting dust in the Indian achieves.

However, the modified proposal by KL Rao, and later expanded by Capt Dinshaw Dastur called for an establishment of a “grand canal” which would transfer water from surplus river basins to deficient regions by building series of dams and irrigate some 34 million hectares of land and also generate 34,000 MW of power. In fact, the Supreme Court, in February this year directed the government to set up a panel to implement the inter-linking river project.  As far as we know, nothing really has happened so far, in this matter.

It would be gratifying to know from the ministry of irrigation about the progress they have made in this regard, considering the sordid fact that millions of our countrymen and the parched earth are starving for water to quench the thirst?

(AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce and was associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts; and later to the US. He can be contacted at anantha_ramdas@yahoo.com.)