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Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, President of India has called for minimizing dislocations while working on large schemes where certain amount of displacement of people is bound to happen. The rehabilitation plan should include working out area required for providing housing for the affected families which have to be relocated, space required for the livelihood either agricultural, artisanal or industrial and adequate funds required should become the component of the mission of “Connecting Water Resources”. “Also by learning from the problems of the past, necessary new mechanisms have to be put in place to provide facilities to those who are likely to be displaced well in advance”, he added. The President was inaugurating the National Water Convention 2005 here today. Shri Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, Minister of Water Resources, Shri Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav , Minister of State for Water Resources, Shri Hari Narayan, Secretary and Senior Officers and representative of various NGOs from all over the country were also present on the occasion.
During his inaugural address, the President suggested the following seven action point for this convention:
1. Recommending schemes which will ensure availability of minimum 25 kilo liters of water per year for each citizen in the country.
2. The schemes chosen should also ensure that availability of water required for producing four hundred million tonnes of foodgrains per year by 2020. Simultaneously, it is suggested that the agricultural scientists need to develop crop varieties, similar to ICRISAT seeds, which will need minimum water.
3. Scheme chosen should ensure that no state is affected by flood or drought.
4. Water harvesting must be made mandatory for all buildings. Necessary legal provisions may be made in this regard.
5. Recommend appropriate legal provisions for making recycling of water mandatory in all buildings particularly large hotels and industries where large amount of water is consumed.
6. Expenditure required for rehabilitation and environmental upgradation should become part of the mission of “connecting water resources”. Also a people oriented governance system should be in place to take care of affected people.
7. There are many schemes for interlinking of rivers, Ministry of Water Resources has to consolidate all the best aspects and bring out cost effective project report. As a whole, interlinking of rivers has to be a mission mode project.
Addressing the gathering on the occasion, Water Resources Minister Shri Priyaranjan Dasmunsi emphazised the need to increase irrigation potential to 160 million hectares for all crops by 2050. He said “Population of India is already over a billion now, which is expected to increase to 1500 to 1800 million by the year 2050. This would require above 450 million tonnes of food grains to support the increased population”. Further elaborating, he said conventional water resources developmental activities will be inadequate to meet the emerging situation. “Therefore, other options including Inter-basin Transfer of Water are to be thought of for providing water for meeting the ever increasing demand for food, and also to overcome regional imbalances in water availability”. Quoting Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of UPA government the Minister also said; that the UPA government is committed to the concept of Interbasin Transfer of Water. “Our priority is ‘Southern Rivers, where water shortages and disputes stretch the political and legal processes to the limit”, he said.
The Minister informed the Feasibility Reports in respect of Peninsula River links are complete. “We have made significant progress in respect of two links under the Peninsular Component of National Perspective Plan (NPP) of Water Resources Development. The State Governments of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have conveyed their consent, subject to certain conditions, for taking up studies to prepare Detailed Project Report for the Ken – Betwa river link”’ he announced. The Memorandum of Understanding between these States is expected to be signed shortly. The Government of Madhya Pradesh also gave its consent for preparing DPR for the Parbati – Kalisindh – Chambal link and discussions are underway with Rajasthan to obtain their consent. The minister also allayed the fears of Bangladesh on India’s ILR programmes. He said, “We are still at a conceptual stage insofar as interlinking of international rivers are concerned and our immediate focus is towards interlinking of Southern Rivers”. While advocating open mind on the issue of Inter Basin Transfer of Water, the Minister said that his ministry would involve experts in various fields such as environment, sociology and others so that these projects cause minimum hardship to environment and to society at large.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State for Water Resources, Shri Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav stressed the need for intra-basin transfer of waters also. “In States like Bihar flood cause miseries to the people and it could be tackled through intra-basin transfer of waters”, he opined.
Speaking on the occasion Shri J. Hari Narayan, Secretary, Water Resources, outlined the strategy for husbanding the water resources of the country and indicated that the strategy includes I) Area Development Programmes ii) Management of Ground Water iii) Improvement of Water Use Efficiency and iv) Development & Management of Surface Water. In the context of development and management of surface water resources, he pointed out that the storages created in India are one of the lowest in the world and there is a need to husband and store the surface run offs through creation of more storage and long distance transfer of water.
National Water Conventions are held normally once in two years, where water resources engineers, scientists, academicians, Non Governmental Organizations and others deliberate and discuss about various pressing water related issues.
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