| Mr.
Babu shares his views on interlinking
of rivers.
India has a rich tradition of community
based decentralized water management.
We are known to harvest rains from
ages together.
After
the British rule we changed the
way in which we managed water. We
went for centralized irrigation
system, centralized water system
etc. Besides spending two hundred
fifty thousand crore on irrigation
system about two-third of India’s
agricultural land is rain-feed today.
The
budget of the interlink program
is five hundred thirty five thousand
crore and it will be done in the
span of fifty years. So do we have
the luxury of that money? And who
will fund in the program? If we
are transferring surplus to deficit
basins, are we aware the amount
of water is present in our basins?
It is all based on incredible data.
Some
one in International Water Management
Institute stated hat we have a hydrological
data conspiracy. Nothing is made
public, only thing that the massive
amount is made known to the public
eye.
I
think there are better ways in managing
water in India and people know how
to manage it. We just need to guide
them and handhold them for creating
intensive structures to manage water
efficiently.
We
don’t have enough time to
watch for a river-linking program.
We can start of by taking immediate
small steps, which may make a huge
difference.
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