What needs to be done before embarking on a gigantic project of River linking in India?
Refer - The Hindu
IAS Parliament 7 years
KEY POINTS
· The Union government is all set to begin work on an estimated $87 billion plan to connect around 60 of India’s largest rivers.
Challenges
· Constitutional Mandate -Water is listed as entry 17 in List II (State list) of the 7th Schedule of the Constitution.
· While the government has initiated discussions to bring the subject under the concurrent list, it may not be an easy task to achieve.
· If there are changes in the political dispensation in various States, the government in a State that is upstream may refuse to share water with downstream States.
· India is technically poor with respect to data related to the water sector.
· The absence of a well-informed water policy reflects a knowledge governance gap.
· At a subnational scale, Virtual Water flows are not consistent with relative water scarcity.
· Water stressed regions exports virtual water through the crop they cultivate.
Solutions
· A strong political commitment required to bring water in to the concurrent list.
· Water resource accounting makes it possible to capture direct, indirect and induced water demand in the process of economic production.
· Policy framework to regulate virtual water flow from water-stressed regions.
· Virtual water flow assessment needs to be carried out at all the major crops at sub-national levels is a must for efficient planning of a scarce resource such as water.
· A full-fledged architecture to solve water sharing disputes between states is needed.
· Government should pay more attention to its more crop per drop mission, and analyse, to what extent Indian agriculture follows this practice
