Anatomy of Interlinking Rivers in India: A Decision in Doubt
Last updated: July 29, 2008
Authors
Vandana Asthana
Department of Government and International Affairs
Eastern Washington University
|
A.C. Shukla |
Published by Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ACDIS Occasional Paper series
November 2005
Full text [PDF]Summary
The world is fast running out of usable water. Anthropogenic activities are polluting and depleting this finite wellspring of life at a startling rate. Industrialization, intensive agriculture, pollution, deforestation, and construction of large dams have damaged the earth’s surface water in persistent ways. Quite simply, unless we change our ways and practices the world will be living with freshwater shortages in the coming future.Keeping in view the increasing demand for water, the government of India developed a new National Water Policy, which states that “water is a prime natural resource, a basic need and a precious national asset. Planning, development, and management of water resources need to be governed by national perspectives.”
While there exists excellent literature on different alternatives to water management since independence, the national perspective guiding water resource development in India has focused on a supply-based paradigm as the only alternative to meet water needs for such diverse purposes as irrigation, drinking water, sanitation, industrial and other uses in a sustainable manner. The policy decision to interlink its rivers announced by the government of India for managing fresh water resources in the twenty-first century is based on a linear model of bureaucratic decision-making and its subsequent stages of implementation. This top-down solution to India’s growing water needs has stirred controversy and debate in one of the world’s largest democracies. This paper addresses the challenges inherent in the government’s policy decision to interlink rivers as envisaged by the bureaucratic agency of state power, a culture of scientific expertise, a perceived need to mobilize global capital, and the opposition to such plans engendered by the agency of civil society in a bid to examine how different actors conceptualize the project through a discursive approach.