The Hindu : A 'win-win' meet on river linking

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 30, 2003

National

National

A 'win-win' meet on river linking

By Gargi Parsai

New Delhi Oct. 29. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) believes the Government's river inter-linking programme to be a "win-win" one. To drive home the point, it organised today a national conference on `Rivers Interlinking: A Win-Win situation', the fourth meeting on the project.

Lending support to this perception were the Union Water Resources Minister, Arjun Charan Sethi, the Chairman of the Task Force on Inter-linking, Suresh Prabhu, and a battery of officials and some members of the Task Force.

0The industry was represented by Sanjay Kirloskar, Anand Mahindra and Arun Nanda. The NGO banner was held up in the pre-lunch session by Vandana Shiva, Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology.

While political leaders stressed the political will in conceiving the Rs. 5,60,000 crore project, Dr. Shiva saw gaps in assumptions of water flows, in the costs and benefits and in the involvement of people at all levels of planning. She marvelled at "the optimism of the CII for organising this win-win meeting".

Mr. Kirloskar sought a "strong will" in addition to great skill and huge amounts of funds to realise the "dream project" of making water a resource perennially available to every corner of the country. "The project will open up opportunities (for the industry) for water infrastructure companies, civil and piping, pumping machinery, manufacturers of prime movers and electricity generating equipment, electronics and instrumentation," he said.

According to Mr. Sethi, the "win-win" situation was that on the one hand the project would provide drinking water and irrigation facilities to regions facing acute water shortage and on the other, relief from the vagaries of flood.

Mr. Suresh Prabhu said the project would ensure "equitable distribution of water". For this, the Task Force was working out modalities for consensus amongst States.

There were a few voices like that of the DANIDA Minister Counsellor, Michael Hjortso, who "speaking in his personal capacity" said that a "win-win" situation might be created if a balance was struck in interlinking and the social costs, environmental degradation and the dislocation of people. This meant involving the people in whose name all this was being done.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National