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Linking rivers futile when Ganga is drying up

Is there a sense in spending lakhs of crores on linking up rivers when the mainstay of the scheme, Himalayan rivers like the Ganga, are going to dry up?

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Is there a sense in spending lakhs of crores on linking up rivers when the mainstay of the scheme, Himalayan rivers like the Ganga, are going to dry up according to every scientific study on melting away of glaciers?

Quite unconcerned with this, the scheme tops the promises made in the BJP's “infrastructure vision for India”, which the party describes as “a revolution waiting to happen”.

Even as the BJP released this vision, the US-based National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) released a report showing that major rivers of the world, including the Ganga, were drying up. The report has prompted food and agricultural policy analyst Devinder Sharma to raise this question that he has been pushing for long, with little effect.

To recall what the study said, the flow of water in the world’s largest rivers, including India’s Ganga, has declined over the past half century. Significant changes were found in about a third of the big rivers. The annual flow into the Indian Ocean fell by about 3%, or 140 cubic km.

Among the rivers showing decline in flow, several serve large populations. The rivers include the Ganga, Yellow River in northern China, Niger in West Africa and the Colorado in southwest United States.

The flow of the Brahmaputra and the Yangtze in China has increased, but scientists say this was due to faster melting of glaciers and may not last long as the glaciers disappear.
Devinder Sharma says, “Imagine, India making a massive investment to build a network of canals to link all the rivers, only to find that by the time the canals come into operation the rivers have gone dry. Of course, you don’t have to worry because economists will tell us this is one investment that will stimulate the economy in downturn, and the GDP will grow.”

Magsaysay awardee Rajendra Singh said for the past several years he has been trying to convince prime ministers, first AB Vajpayee and then Manmohan Singh, about the dangers of the scheme.
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