Thursday, September 13, 2018

River interlinking project




India is a country where both flood and drought happens at the same time and sometimes even in same state. With rise in the frequency of these floods and droughts that are rapidly putting pressure on the farmers, we can't even understand the plight of the wild animals and other living beings in the nature.

What is more alarming, are the pressure mounted my the rising population on the resources, their expansion leading to destruction of forests, drying of natural reservoirs and narrowing of drainage channels.As India is a democracy without any effective law enforcement, and vote banks matter, people misuse the same in making illegal structures/ home/ industries in these government lands and other natural places without giving due importance to its ecological impact. 

So....what was the result? Deluges!!...be it any part of India...North, South, East, West...no one was spared. Thousands lost lives, millions lost home and billions of money lost...Human greed responsible for their fate. 

Why these things needed to act as Prelude for our topic of River interlinking? Its because I wanted to highlight that already enough damage is done!

We have already damaged the ecosystem enough and only we can bring it back but with a strong backing of government and strong law enforcement. As its difficult to bring back the marshlands, the drainage channels, the natural reservoirs, stream from the people who have made structures on it...its nearly impossible in a country like India.
What we can do, is to bring alternatives, like man made canals, acting as all the above...and also interlinking rivers like a road in between. The farmers will get water for irrigation, wild animals can quench their thirst without coming into contact to human dwellings, water can be transported to drought hit areas and it can also decrease the burden of the floods. It can also act as natural reservoir and help greatly in rain water harvesting. Since it being a government project, people can't misuse  the same as it will get similar importance as an expressway or a railway track. 
This project need to be given its due importance, as the idea was started from the British in 19th century to the 70s as ' National Water Grid", abandoned by Congress, again started during Vajpayee times, then abandoned by the UPA government and finally pushed for the first phase by PM Modi.
It had seen its fair deal of politics around it and I only wish it to be started as a pilot project.

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