Open Forum
New Delhi, 22 September 2016
Water Wars
INTER & INTRA STATE
AID VITAL
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
The Cauvery
water dispute, lingering for decades has now taken a new ugly turn. The States
of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are out in the open bickering as none are satisfied
with the Supreme Court order (of September 5) directing the former to release
15,000 cusecs water every day to the latter till September 15, which has been
revised (on September 12) to 12,000 cusecs a day, following agitation.
Neither of the States are happy with the order. Karnataka has seen trouble
brewing with violent protests from furious farmers and Kannada organizations,
whereas Tamil Nadu too has retaliated with organisations and political parties
calling bandhs.
Before going
into the intricacies of water sharing, it needs to be pointed out that less
water has been flowing down the Cauvery river for both climatic and man-made
reasons while the size of the area it irrigates has been increasing in both the
States, obviously to boost up agricultural production. This trend is likely to
continue and aggravate the crisis in the coming years as monsoon rain is too
declining.
One cannot
deny the fact that there is no rational behind the violent protests of
Karnataka. One may mention here that in the Mandya region of Karnataka around
400 farmers committed suicide last year due to crop failure and the
consequences arising out of it. According to sources, these farmers have been
able to raise paddy and sugar-cane in only one-third of the fields available
for cultivation due to scanty rainfall and availability of adequate water. It
is also a fact that the farmers have not heeded the government’s warning to
change the crop pattern and avoid paddy cultivation as it requires lot of
water.
But farmers
are not ready to change their age-old practice as there has not been much
intervention and technological guidance to educate farmers about changing the
cropping pattern. Thus, one can easily state that in the given situation, the
apex court order may not seem quite justified though, however, the needs of
Tamil Nadu cannot be doubted.
It is well
known that the Cauvery Water Tribunal Water Sharing tribunal verdict way back
in 2007 upheld a pre-independence pact on water sharing and fixed share of
Cauvery waters for Tamil Nadu as also small shares for Pondicherry and Kerala. It may be pertinent
here to point out that the river basin for Cauvery spans almost double of what
exists for it in Karnataka.
Along with
this dispute, the Odisha and Chhattisgarh governments have also got embroiled
regarding construction of barrages and dams over the Mahanadi
by the latter State. Odisha has accused Chhattisgarh of not consulting it while
building seven to eight barrages on the Mahanadi
though the latter claimed it has not drawn more water.
According to
a report prepared by a fact finding team of the Odisha government, Chhattisgarh
had kept Odisha in the dark about its projects in the upstream of Mahanadi. The report details six barrages to facilitate
supply of water to industries and the possible impact of the projects,
specially Hirakud reservoir among others. Meanwhile, an expert committee would
look into the issue while the National Institute of Hydrology has been asked to
study the entire Mahanadi river basin.
There were
also problems in the Indus basin over the
Sutlej-Yamuna link canal among the States of Punjab and Haryana and the Supreme
Court had to intervene this year too. But this did not linger unlike the above
and was eventually settled.
Meanwhile,
the problem with water sharing is not limited to inter-State but also with our
neighbours. One may refer to the problems with Pakistan
regarding sharing of Indus water. As early as
1960, the country signed a treaty that allotted to Pakistan
most of the Indus river waters without any
quid pro quo. The Indus Water Treaty reserved for India just 19.48 per cent of the total water of
the six-river Indus system.
This treaty
was indeed a very generous agreement but now has created problems for the
country as the demands for water have been increasing with each passing year.
One may mention in this context that J&K’s total hydropower generating
capacity in operation or under construction does not equal the size of a single
mega dam that Pakistan is currently pursuing such as the 7000 MW Bunjui Dam or
the 4500MW Bhasha Dam.
Experts are
of the opinion that India
cannot afford to give over 80 per cent of the Indus water to Pakistan in
view of the country’s impending water crisis and needs to be changed, more so
because of the latter’s continued cross-border terrorism. The water needs of Punjab and Haryana, specially in the irrigation sector,
may warrant a change in the quantum of water sharing in the treaty.
There are
also problems with China
which is building mega dams in the Brahmaputra, thereby curtailing the flow of
the river into India.
In spite of protests by India, the construction of dams are in progress and
experts believe that once the dams are in operation, the flow of the
Brahmaputra to the North East would be severely curtailed. Reports indicate
that China is planning to
divert 200 billion cubic metres (bcm) of the Brahmaputra from south to north to
feed the Yellow river. If and when this
happens, India’s
water crises will accentuate further. Of the 1900 bcm of river runoff available
in the country, as much as 600 bcm is generated in the Brahmaputra and thus one
can imagine the consequences if the bulk of this is diverted by China.
Add to this
is the fact that China has also approved construction of three more dams on
Brahmaputra river – known as Zangbo in China -- in Tibet in addition to the one
being built. A document approved by the Chinese cabinet about projects to be
completed during its 12th Five Year Plan mentioned three dams to be
built at Dagu, Jiacha and Jiexu on the Brahmaputra, according to Indian Embassy
sources in Beijing
treaty.
Indeed,
shortage of water has become a global problem and reports indicate that by
early or mid-next decade, India
would become a water stressed country. With such a high rate of population
growth and the need to boost up agricultural production and productivity, water
needs of the country would increase by leaps and bounds. Some parts of the
country, specially a few western and southern States, are already facing acute
water crisis.
In such a
scenario, there is need for serious rethinking regarding sharing of waters
within the country and also with its neighbours. The needs of an
expanding irrigation system, increased food production coupled with the need
for industrialization would obviously necessitate requirement of more water per
capita in the not-very-distant future, if the country has to progress at a fast
rate. The imperative now is to create a low-water economy keeping in view the
demands of development and economic prosperity.
It needs to
be pointed out that India’s
per capita storage capacity is significantly lower than that of other countries
with the quantum of water that can be stored as a proportion of average run-off
pegged at just 50 days. This number subsumes wide variations – from 220 days in
the Krishna to just two days in the
Brahmaputra/Barak basin. In most other countries, the total national figure is
around 250-300 days.
Ismail Serageldin, a former Vice President of the World Bank, had
predicted in the late 90s that the wars of this century would be over water and
not oil or politics. His meteoric forecast may become a reality if nation
States do not cooperate at the global level and amongst each other and also
adopt policies and programmes for proper and efficient management of water
resources within their own countries. Water cooperation is thus the need of the
hour and the UN has rightly earmarked this year for carrying forward such work
judiciously.---INFA
(Copyright, India
News and Feature Alliance)
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