Conflicts over River Waters

(This post is partially based on the article ‘India fights over water, but not for its rivers’, by Himanshu Thakkar in the November 2016 issue of the Civil Society magazine.)

Inter-state conflicts over the sharing of river waters are on the rise in India. When the monsoon is normal or in excess, the downstream states do not complain. Conflicts break out whenever the rainfall is deficient in a year. That was the case this year when both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu had deficient monsoons and have been fighting over the Cauvery waters.

The year has also seen other water conflicts:

1.   Mahanadi Dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh: Odisha is accusing upstream state Chhattisgarh of building barrages and dams to store and divert too much water.  

2.   Mahadayi Dispute among Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka: Goa opposes the building of upstream dams by the other two states.

3.   Krishna and Godavari water-sharing disputes between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, which will also spill over to Maharashtra and Karnataka, among other basin states.

4.   Dispute between Punjab and Haryana over the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal: Punjab has been objecting to the diversion of Sutlej waters to Haryana through SYL. There have been court battles on the issue and in November 2016 the Supreme Court gave its verdict in favour of Haryana. The Centre will now have to complete the Canal in the face of Punjab’s opposition. Punjab, in fact, has returned to the previous owners all the land acquired for the Canal.

(There is also the possibility of India reneging on the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan.)

In all these cases, no state is worried about the condition of the river it is fighting over. The real solution will not come through courts, tribunals, violent protests, bandhs, or closure of borders as it happened this year over Cauvery. What we need to do is the following:

• Ensure the river’s catchment areas are maintained intact without deforestation.
• Build small checkdams (such as the ones built by Rajendra Singh’s Tarun Bharat Sangh in Rajasthan) instead of planning more big dams.
• Use the water wisely.

The Modi government changed the name of the Water Resources Ministry to the Ministry of Ganga Rejuvenation, River Development and Water Resources. Uma Bharti, known for her commitment and zeal for the Ganga, was put in charge of this ministry.

According to Himanshu Thakkar, the Coordinator, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People, ‘There is nothing in the policies, plans or projects of the current Union government that would rejuvenate the Ganga. The government is pushing for more funds, more infrastructure, more technology, the same path that has been followed for the past three decades and which failed to achieve any improvement in the condition of the Ganga. Even now there is no attention to democratic, transparent, participatory and accountable governance, without which there seems no hope for the river.’

That is true of most of our rivers.