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News From Indian News Paper
Link to certain disaster
The Statesman
May 22, 2003
The interlinking of rivers, if implemented despite its many
procedTHE idea of tackling the flood problem in Assam’s Brahmaputra basin in
by diverting excess water to the Ganga in West Bengal, as part of the Prime
Minister’s ambitious River Link Project, is preposterous. For, in floods
have ben devastating the Gangetic plain in Bihar and West Bengal and the
Ganga has eroded its banks in Malda and Murshidabad districts.
Soil erosion in the Bhutan’s mountainous regions has deposited too much silt
in North Bengal rivers, raising their beds. As a result, almost the whole
region experiences floods, erosion and shifting river courses almost every
year, that bring untold suffering to the people and cause loss of crores of
rupees. After the the Farakka Barrage was built, Malda and Murshidabad have
become extremely vulnerable to floods and erosion. The problem is so acute
that the Ganga may soon erode the land between it and its tributary, the
Bhagirathi, and become a wider mass of water over a stretch of a few
kilometres. If that happens the river may not only engulf houses and
cultivable land in north Murshidabad, but also the railway tracks — the most
important link between South and North Bengal. The graveness of the
situation can be gauged from the fact that even the Ganga Bhavan Inspection
Bungalow near the Farakka Barrage in Malda has been lost to erosion.
The West Bengal government has been demanding adequate funds from the Centre
to combat the post-Farakka problem. Instead of doing that the Centre has
come up with a weird proposal: aggravate the flood problem in West Bengal to
ease that in Assam? The Assam government has to tackle, in its own way, the
floods in the Brahmaputra basin — perhaps by discharging the excess water
through its normal channel.
Though Murshidabad and Malda districts have been hard hit because of the
Farakka Barrage, the road-cum-railway link is a boon to the people of North
Bengal, Assam, and some northeastern states, for it has made travel easier
and given a boost to transport of goods and tourism.
Land acquisition hazards
As Teesta Barrage Project’s chief engineer and North Bengal Flood Control
Commission’s chairman, this writer’s experience says that the major
impediment to canalisation of rivers is acquisition of land. People today
are extremely wary about giving away land for public good. Moreover, the
expected project cost for linking the rivers would multiply several times.
Also, the time limit for any such project in our country is uncertain. If
this is the state affairs, public opposition becomes obvious. An added
reason for that is the authorities’ failure to convince the people about the
purpose and utility of gigantic projects, especially if they don’t get any
immediate benefit for parting with their land.
Difficulties in canalisation
Teesta Barrage Project’s main canals in Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and West
Dinajpur districts of West Bengal are mostly lined, with necessary headworks
and numerous cross-drainage structures. To accommodate any water from the
Brahmaputra, TBP’s main canals would have to be widened — which means
destroying the existing canal system and building a new one. Now, if a new
canal is to be built to link the Brahmaputra with the Ganga, the biggest
problem will be acquisition of land. Since the canal has to pass through
dense forests, it may disturb flora and fauna and cause ecological
imbalance. That means it can’t be built without the necessary environmental
clearance. Also, houses, tea-gardens, cash-crop producing land such as the
valuable pineapple gardens and mango groves and other agricultural land and
marked and unmarked graveyards have to be acquired. All these could make the
project a very time-consuming affair, not unlike the TBP.
In North Dinajpur district’s Islampur sub-division, West Bengal becomes a
narrow strip of land between Bangladesh on one side and Bihar and Nepal on
the other. Through this narrow strip flows Mahananda river and pass the rail
tracks and National Highway 34 that connect North Bengal and the
north-eastern states with the rest of India. Work on TBP’s main canal (that
passes through this strip) could not begin for several years because people
didn’t want their graveyards to be submerged. Such obstacles, and the
resultant delays, have shot up the project cost. The Subarnarekha project
too has passed through such a phase. Similar problems could be encountered
in Malda and other districts in the River Link Project.
Water discharge
Excess water of the mighty Brahmaputra can’t be canalised into the Ganga
through the existing irrigation canals either because they can’t be used as
flood flow canals.
In the dry season, however, the problem is quite different. As the
Brahmaputra and the Ganga and their major tributaries flow into Bangladesh,
the sharing of dry season water requires special international commitment
and agreement. There’s a great demand for the dry season flow because it
helps cultivate rotation and ravi crops and ensures navigational facilities.
Bangladesh has to bear the brunt of the floods in the Brahmaputra and the
Ganga, so it would naturally demand the lion’s share of the two rivers’ and
the Teesta’s waters in the dry season as well. If only dry season discharge
is to be canalised, will there be anything left of Brahmaputra for Assam
after Bangladesh gets its share?
Feeding other states with Ganga’s water from Farakka during the dry season
is an impossibility. If there’s not enough dry season flow in the
Brahmaputra either, it would be absolutely futile to interlink them at a
huge cost and against a strong public opposition.
Therefore, any decision on RLP has to be taken with prudence, keeping in
mind our international commitment on sharing lean season Ganga and
Brahmaputra waters with Bangladesh. If even after this, we think linking
rivers will benefit the people at large, there must be something really
wrong with our way of thinking.
(The author is retired secretary, Irrigation and Waterways Department, govt
of West Bengal.)
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