Great expectations from “River Linking Project of India”.

India’s huge ambitious project, National Rivers Linking will be re started as announced by environment ministry few days ago. This large scale civil engineering project aims to link all major rivers in India through reservoirs and canals to reduce floods in some parts of country and water shortage in other parts of country. Once implemented, this project will be a major boost for the economy of the country as NRLP (National Rivers Linking Project) aims to link 30 major rivers in the country with the canal network of 15000 KM, generation of 34 Giga Watt hydroelectric power, 3000 water storage reservoirs and irrigation of 87 million acres of barren land.

Country’s current water management system is very poor where we have huge imbalance in availability of water in the country. In monsoon a big part of the country faces problems of floods and after rains shortage of water is witnessed in the same areas. NRLP aims to linking excess water rivers with some parched rivers in the country and drain the excess water in those rivers and proving the most precious life element – water to these parched and arid areas to improve irrigation, agriculture production, and providing drinking water.

The Centre has now started groundwork in the Ken-Betwa project, involving Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, while a detailed project report to link the Damanganga and Pinjal rivers to provide drinking water from Mumbai has been submitted to the Maharashtra and Gujarat governments. The normal to excess rain areas in the country like Assam, Himalaya and it’s foothills, Southern states receive heavy rainfall in months of June-August, but due to improper water drainage and management system, scarcity of water is seen in other parts of the country.

The Indian Rivers Inter-link project is similar to other major global river inter-link projects and has same technical challenges. Rhine–Main–Danube Canal also called the Europa Canal, Illinois Waterway system, Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway, Gulf Intracoastal Waterway are some similar worldwide projects where water has been drained to excess water areas to arid zones. When it can be possible in world, it can be possible in India as well all we need to implement and execute this project and make the water accessed to parts of the country which have be thirsty & barren for ages.