In his third consecutive term, Modi will have to take a lot of steps towards ensuring that India is firmly set on an irreversible path to Viksit Bharat by 2047. Water security is by far one of the big challenges which must be addressed, ideally in the next 5 years but certainly within 20 years. Water security entails both providing water as well as mitigating floods. It also includes water management. The prime minister has, over the last decade, spoken a lot on this matter and also executed a few projects. This issue of droughts and floods, should be taken up on a war footing if India is really to be made water-secure.
It is not as if the government is blissfully unaware of the advantages and challenges of water security. It has been doing its bit in a few villages, and districts and states. Assam is implementing the integrated river basin project in a bid to manage floods in its state with the help of the World Bank. Water harvesting, water conservation, water sanitation and propagating micro-irrigation has helped to certain extent. However, the biggest challenge is to execute the inter-linking of rivers to ensure that water flows from surplus to drought areas. The interlinking of rivers was an idea mooted way back in the 1970s by Dr Rao.
While the government did set up a National Perspective Plan in 1980 to develop Himalayan rivers and peninsular rivers, only one project has seen the light of the day in the last 4.5 decades.
The Ken-Betwa Link Project, which would cost approximately R44,605 crore, involves these two subsidiaries of the Yamuna River. It envisages drawing water from the Ken in MP to the Betwa in UP by building the Dhaudhan dam (77 metres tall and 2 metres wide with a 230km-long canal). The water will be used to irrigate the arid region of Bundelkhand. Besides irrigating the land, it will supply drinking water to 6.2 million people and also produce over 100 MW of power. Such multi-purpose projects have been executed earlier as well. The Narmada project in Gujarat, which provides water to the formerly drought-stricken region of Kutch, is a prime example of how the face of Gujarat has changed due to such projects. But this is the first river linking project drawing water across two states. The funding for this project will come from a grant provided by the centre with a small (less than 10 per cent) loan component. The project, which was planned in 1982, finally took off during the Covid period. It has thus taken more than 40 years to materialise.
States are undertaking multipurpose projects. The Bhakra-Nangal Dam, Hirakud Dam, and the Damodar Valley projects are but some of the bigger ones. It is the multi-state river linking projects which are a real challenge. One of the reasons is that water is a state-legislated subject (listed under Entry 17 in the State List of the Constitution of India). Water supplies, irrigation, canals, storage, and drainage all fall entirely within the purview of states. At the time the Constitution was written, no one would have imagined that India could face water shortages, else it would have been placed in the Concurrent List, under the purview of both state and central governments. However, the Constitution has provided that the absolute power of the state can be overridden by the Centre through regulation of water and development of interstate rivers and river valleys, to the extent that such regulations and developments are done in the public interest. Being a democratic country, the Centre has still not used this Entry 56 of List 1 of the Constitution of India.
Should the Centre, if it were to get 400-plus seats in the forthcoming election as is being touted, use this entry for the betterment of two neighbouring states? It is a tricky question unless both states are promised benefits from undertaking such large projects. Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra have been agreeable to the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam project because each state got some benefit or other. Sharing of power generated from 1200 MW power plants is done in the ratio of 57 per cent for MP, 27 per cent by Maharashtra and 16 per cent by Gujarat. While the bulk of the water would be utilised in Gujarat, the state of Maharashtra and the drought-prone areas of Rajasthan will also receive water.
While reviving wells, building ponds, bund dams, or rejuvenating watersheds can be done at the district level, the government at the centre has to take up river-linking projects by building consensus with the states. It helps if both state and centre belong to the same party, but if the benefits are clearly outlined in equitable terms, there is no reason for more river-linking projects not to be undertaken. Mega projects will build a mega India.