nterlinking of rivers – A different view
The Supreme Court issued a judgment on 27 th Feb 2012 to the Government of India to implement the scheme to interlink rivers. The government shall set up a high level committee on interlinking of rivers; the committee shall meet “at least, once in two months”; in the absence of any member the meeting shall not be adjourned; the committee shall submit a biannual report on actions to the Union Cabinet, “which shall take final and appropriate decisions in the interest of the country as expeditiously as possible and preferably within 30 days from the matter being placed before it for consideration.” What is interlinking of rivers and the effect of the Supreme Court judgment ? We respect the judgment of the honourable Supreme Court of India and will not like to comment on it. Without getting into the obvious matter of judicial overreach, let us take a careful look at what interlinking is all about and what the decision will imply. The question is what this particular idea of linking rivers implies. We are only discussing here only the tehnical issues , not the legal issues. National Water Development Agency (NWDA) was set up in July, 1982 as Autonomous Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, to carry out the water balance and other studies on a scientific and realistic basis for optimum utilisation of Water Resources of the Peninsular rivers system for preparation of feasibility reports and thus to give concrete shape to Peninsular Rivers Development Component of National Perspective. In 1990, NWDA was also entrusted with the task of Himalayan Rivers Development Component of National Perspectives. Recently, the functions of NWDA have been further modified and the work of preparation of detailed Project Reports (DPR) of various link proposals and Pre-feasibility Reports and feasibility reports of intra-State links as proposed by the States have been included in the functions of NWDA. FUNCTIONS OF NWDA:
a) ...