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dam-l LS: Hindustan Times Debate on Drought and Big Dams.
Source: The Hindustan Times, May 15, 2000
Monday debate: Does India need big dams?
(B.G. Verghese for and Sanjay Sangvai against big dams)
Many have labelled the prevailing drought situation as a
man-made disaster.
Towns and villages over large parts of the country are
desperate for water. Many are dependent on periodic tanker supplies
ferried across
considerable distances. As summer advances, communities may be
compelled to migrate
unless help comes their way.
Rainfall is often erratic and unevenly distributed over
space and time. Many regions regularly experience recurrent drought
and/or flood as part
of their normal hydrological cycle. Droughts, like floods, are therefore no
surprise. It can be mitigated, even averted, by drought-proofing and, like
flood, must be appropriately managed as and when it occurs.
Population growth and development aimed at enhancing the
quality of life entails larger water use. This is subjecting India to
increasing
seasonal and regional water stress, with deteriorating water quality being an
aggravating factor. Water conservation at all times and places, improved water
management and maintaining water quality are therefore critical.
Since all freshwater
emanates from rain (snow and glacial ice), it must be harvested at all levels
through a variety of means and practices, groundwater recharge and
micro to mega storages.
These measures are not necessarily mutually exclusive and
each has certain costs and benefits. The objective should be to secure
optimality. The notion that rainwater harvesting, groundwater
recharge and sound water
management by themselves can provide a complete or sufficient answer to
India's water needs is mistaken. Pursued as a panacea that obviates
the need for
large dams, it could rob the country of vital insurance against disaster.
It is wholly fallacious to argue that if hundreds of large
dams (over 15 metres high) have not averted the drought this year, the hugely
demonised Sardar Sarovar, for instance, will make no difference. The
simple answer is
that the hundreds of dams and storages on local rain-fed rivers and smaller
conservation works and traditional systems must fail if the rains
fail. Deserted villages are
mute testimony to this truth.
Sufficient rain must first fall before it can be harvested
in situ. North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch suffer aridity. But the
Narmada rises
over 1300 kilometres away in a relatively high rainfall region. If its abundant
flood waters are stored, these can be diverted from the terminal
Sardar Sarovar dam
to the very areas of Gujarat most troubled by drought. Gujarat's allotted share
of nine million acre feet of water - or even half that quantum -
would have averted
much of the present distress had the dam height reached 110 metres when the
canals would begin to flow and generate energy.
The distribution system is far advanced and would have
guaranteed drinking water, fodder and livelihood to millions. It
would have recharged
groundwater and filled hundreds of village ponds and depressions en route.
Dams are not a unique or absolute solution. But it is a
dangerous mantra that small is beautiful, big is bad. The two go together. What
would northwest India, indeed all of India, be minus the Bhakra-Pong?
The country
has a huge task ahead to manage its water resources sensibly, optimally and
equitably. This is what the nation must address unitedly without
losing more time in
futile, wholly unproductive rguments. The present drought is both a
crisis and an
opportunity. Which shall it be? -- B.G. Verghese
****
There are a number of reasons why the Sardar Sarovar
Project cannot be a real solution for the drought in Gujarat.
Even if it had been completed, only 1.6 per cent and 9.24
per cent of the total cultivable lands of drought-affected Kutch and Saurashtra
would have benefited. Even before it could have possibly reached these regions,
sugar factories, water schemes for metros and 'water marketing' for industries
would have gobbled up the water.
The estimate of water availability in the Narmada has been
22 million acre foot (MAF). The irrigation efficiency presumed by our
bureaucrats was 60 per cent, which in real terms is impossible. The
India Irrigation
Review (1991) of the World Bank and the report of the Tenth Estimates
Committee of
Gujarat Legislature make it amply clear that the average irrigation
efficiency in
India has been 45-50 per cent. In the Project Completion Report
(1995), the World Bank
stated the untenability of the claims of benefits and estimated that
about 20 per cent
of the command area would have to be curtailed. This obviously means the Kutch
and Saurashtra region will be denied the dam's services.
Dam authorities claim that the Sardar Sarovar Project will
provide drinking water to 135 towns and cities along with at least
8,215 villages.
The number of villages to be provided with drinking water has been mysteriously
increasing from zero at the beginning to 'all the villages in Kutch
and Saurashtra' at
present. Recent information claims that 0.86 MAF water is reserved for 135
urban centres and 8,215 villages and puts the number of beneficiaries up to 40
million!
The real, long-term solution lies in a decentralised water
conservation network along with optimum utilisation of the available rainwater
and groundwater in the drought affected regions. Imperative measures for
groundwater recharge include restriction on its excess extraction for
cash crops and
Green Revolution-style agriculture.
One has to scrutinise the babble of the dam building lobby
about the lack of rain in Saurashtra and Kutch. Newspapers have asked
the question:
'Despite ten consecutive good monsoon years, why could the water problem
not be solved'? It was pointed out that during the monsoon, many areas of
Saurashtra were inundated only for a few days. Why could this water not be
conserved? The answer lies in the fact that the Gujarat Government has done
nothing during all these years to arrest the rainwater in small dams
or in the form of
groundwater.
From the summer of 1995, the Saurashtra Lok Manch, along
with the disciples of Swadhyay Parivar and other organisations, have
initiated a
campaign for recharging wells in Saurashtra on a large scale. Saurashtra has
700,000 wells spread all over its territory. The recharging of even
200,000 wells would
bring up the groundwater level throughout Saurashtra.
The campaign could recharge thousands of wells during
1995-98. The endeavour involves no big budget, no bureaucratic and unwieldy
planning. It is in the hands of peasants and can be implemented
cheaply with early results.
Sustainable and lasting development cannot be reduced only
to one dimension of increasing agricultural output, as is the case with large
dam projects. Neglecting all other solutions, Gujarat continues to
facilitate work on
the Sardar Sarovar Project, which alone consumes about 85 per cent of
the State's
irrigation budget, efforts and attention. The worst part is that it
may not benefit
the needy areas at all. -- Sanjay Sangvai