Is this a priority for Assam? No doubt, any flood alleviation project will be of some benefit.

Chandan K. Mahanta, St. Louis, USA

I am sure many of us have heard of the much-touted River Linking mega project being hatched by the Indian government. However, details of the project are lacking and as usual, transparency of the planning, a critical measure of participation of the people who will be affected by the project, if undertaken, is missing. A number of internet groups are discussing the issues involved, but few are familiar with Assam’s particular concerns and needs. It is in the perspective of this vacuum, that I decided to get into the subject, with more questions than answers, hoping it will generate an interest on the subject among Assam’s well wishers.

As we well know, Assam and the NE’s interests and concerns rarely get to be heard and heeded even less. This is an attempt to draw attention to what is at stake in Assam, and thereby be counted in the planning process, before a massive fraud is foisted on the people.

The Origins: The project, as I understand it, has been undertaken by the Center, on the directive of the Supreme Court, as the result of a public interest litigation ( PIL) filed by an individual; based on a speech by the President, who is a recognized rocket-scientist, and thus is looked up to by large segments of the country/ (people) to be an able and wise leader.

The Premise: The premise of the project, as articulated by the President, simply put, is to divert water from flood prone areas, equated to water-surplus areas, to drought affected or water-shortage areas.

The Purported Solution: The solution proposed is to link the river systems in a way to divert water from flood prone areas to drought stricken areas, thereby killing two birds with one shot of a mega project.

The Scheme’s Legitimacy: I see major problems with the entire concept, from the get go. Allow me to explain:

· How does the Supreme Court, the apex institution of the judicial branch of government, derive its
authority to direct the legislative and executive branches to undertake a project? Is it the role
of the judiciary? Had the Lok Sabha passed a law, authorizing the executive branch, to undertake the mega-project, approving funds there for; but the executive branch either refused or dilly-dallied, then the Supreme Court could have intervened. I find it quite inexplicable that the SC can, so casually, brush aside as fundamental a tenet of democracy as the will of the people expressed by elected representatives in the legislative body. The Lok Sabha ceding its constitutional authority and not challenging the SC directive as exceeding its jurisdiction also perplexes me.

· The SC directive, one of judicial fiat, wipes out the interests and democratic rights
of the people of the Brahmaputra valley, a flood prone region, by ordering the executive branch
to divert waters from Assam. Ostensibly the scheme will reduce flood problems in Assam by 20% to 30%, according to Suresh Prabhu, while it will help take water to the arid regions. Sure it would help the arid regions, if river linking can be accomplished, as touted by the administration. But will diverting waters of the Manas River really mitigate Assam’s flooding, even marginally? I will get to Manas River later.

The SC cited Entry 56 of List I of the Constitution, which apparently gives the Center rights over
waters of all interstate rivers. Isn’t that nice? So the Center now can take away
Assam river waters as well, like its oil and its minerals, with token compensation, if at all,
to benefit other regions of the country, while the inhabitants of the region that own these resources
are left holding the bag. Some federal republic, this!

To add insult to injury, Tamil Nadu’s Jayalalitha administration petitioned the SC to force the
Lok Sabha to nationalize the rivers, so the Center can go about the task without any distraction
by the likes of Assam. This is something to note due to Indian Democracy’s record on such issues.

On this point I have yet another question: Article 56 gives the Center authority to control interstate rivers, without consent of the involved states. Neither the Brahmaputra nor the Manas are interstate rivers. So how is it that the team led by Mr. Suresh Prabhu is preparing ‘studies’ without either the approval, or even participation by the citizenry of Assam in any meaningful way? Mr. Prabhus’ recent announcement at Guwahati that Assam river waters will not be diverted without the consent of the people of Assam, does not carry much credibility in light of the seven so-called pre-feasibility studies that has apparently been decided upon, to divert water from Assam to the west; while the reports remain unavailable for the people to examine.

Finally, on the matter of legalities, British common law, the model for American and Indian laws, expressly prohibits arbitrary altering of natural water flow patterns by anyone. River-linking proposals, if carried out, will dramatically alter natural drainage patterns on both sides of an east-west canal/aqueduct system that will be required. This is something that should no go unchallenged.

· Even if the elected members of the Lok Sabha authorize the project in a democratic manner, what are the chances of Assam and the NE’s voice being heard, should they object? The region’s contingent of MPs count in the teens, in a Lok Sabha of 400 MPs strong. What is their clout? What is the track record of the Lok Sabha responding to the NE’s opposition to legislation that had gravely impacted the interests of the region?

· One might ask here: why should Assam object, if it is compensated fairly? My concerns would be recent history. Assam still does not receive fair compensation, at international rates, for its crude oil, while Assam’s people are required to buy consumer goods of inferior quality at high prices from protected Indian industries, being prevented from obtaining such goods of higher quality and lower prices from international sources. All this under the claims of the national good, while the good of the NE region does not count.

· Add to that the fact that only a few weeks back, the Central minister visiting Assam to offer its sympathies to the hundreds of thousands of flood victims, while pressed to declare Assam flooding a national problem, did not hesitate to tell the Assamese pointedly that it could not be done. The reason: it might make Bihar and Bengal seek similar status, and that India could not afford that. That simple. But to plan to expend huge amounts of money, not to mention other non-monetary prices to pay, in damming the Manas and linking it to the Kosi so that Assam waters could be taken to drier western areas, is no problem! Is that unmitigated gall or what?

· But most of all Assam’s question should be on priorities. Selling monsoon waters is not Assam’s priority, but flood abatement is. What has the Center done so far on this life and death issue for so many in Assam for so many decades after independence?

The Manas River Proposal and Assam’s Flood Reduction:

One of the proposed links in the river interlinking project is between the Manas and Kosi rivers. For those who are not familiar with the Manas river, it is on the north bank of the Brahmaputra river and flows down to it from the Himalayas through Bhutan. From maps and NASA satellite photos the Manas river appears to be quite wide, with three forks spreading out from near the Bhutan border to the Brahmaputra, creating a wide swath of flood plain and resulting in large areas of ‘char’ areas. The confluence of the two rivers is about seven eighths of the way down the course of the Brahmaputra. Most of the Brahmaputra valley flooding occurs upriver of this.

Is this a priority for Assam? No doubt, any flood alleviation project will be of some benefit. But how much of the scarce resources; little if any of which have been directed towards the only sure way for flood reduction in the Brahmaputra valley, namely dredging; should be used to dam the Manas river, so that water from its reservoir could be carried elsewhere to India? Have the river-linking proponents and the Central Government asked the people of Assam that question, before determining that a huge amount of resources, heretofore unavailable to Assam, will be dedicated to the Manas river dam and reservoir and canal/aqueduct building? Who will be the primary beneficiaries of the effort and who will pay the maximum price? Suresh Prabhu, chairman of the task force appointed to look into the river interlinking project, claims that the Manas-Kosi link will reduce Assam’s flood problems by 20-30%. Is this a credible claim? One needs only to be aware of where the Manas river is situated in the Brahmaputra valley, to know that the claim is a complete fabrication.

Some issues to think about while considering this project are:

1. How much of good arable ground to be inundated by a reservoir? Where will the people living there be relocated to and with what compensation? Are promises for relocation and compensation trustworthy, in view of what has happened in such projects in Bihar, in Rajasthan, in Gujarat?

2. What are the risks of building a dam in one of the world’s most seismically sensitive areas, Assam? In case of a dam collapse in an earthquake who will pay the price? What will be the human cost?

3. What are the environmental impacts that such a dam, its reservoir, and the canals/aqueducts building will have? The only acknowledgement that we have seen so far from the river-linking schemers is that it would adversely impact the tiger sanctuary. That is only the tip of the iceberg.

4. What will be the hydrological and geological implications of impounding the Manas river waters and the effects of ongoing silting due to deforestation on its catchment areas, both on the reservoir and the downstream river channel that now has settled into a flooding season followed by a period of rich agriculture, aided by the nutrient rich silting? Remember what happened to the Bhakra Nangal reservoir from silting—resulting in flash flooding in Punjab and highly damaging uncontrolled opening of floodgates, and subsequent building of another dam and reservoir.

5. How will a canal, claimed by Suresh Prabhu to be navigable, connecting the Manas reservoir to the Kosi river be routed? Has anyone seen a single line on a piece of paper showing what is being proposed and how it might be implemented? How many people will lose their land, how many will be displaced and how would such a canal impact the region through which it will pass? Will such a canal be project be sustainable?

Canals and Aqueducts:

The means for linking the rivers; “50 to 100 meter wide and 6 meters deep canals”, “suitable for navigation”, as proposed by Suresh Prabhu, for linking north Indian rivers to the south, obviously do not apply to linking the Manas to the Kosi. But canals and aqueducts would still be required.
A canal to take Manas river reservoir water from near the Bhutan border westward, north of Bangladesh, through North Bengal and to the Kosi in Bihar, will have to cross more than twenty five rivers, some minor and others major, like Sankosh, Raidak, Amo, Kartoya, Teesta, Atrai and Mahananda. Now imagine digging a canal in the ground across the flow of these south flowing rivers. What will happen to the water when the canal meets the first river?

You got it.

So the canal will have to be either underground, in huge concrete pipes, or raised above ground. To carry water out of the reservoir, one will have to depend on gravity flow for most of the stretch. However, we know that to negotiate the stretch through North Bengal, water will have to be pumped up the hills as well.
To go underground, below existing rivers and dips in the terrain, in a region where the ground water level might be less than three feet below the surface more than half the year, as the pipe approaches the west, it will go further and further down into the earth. A point will then be reached when the idea becomes ridiculous, if not so at the very beginning.

The only alternative left then will be to build an open canal raised several meters off the ground, so that dips in the ground, river channels and flood plains could be crossed over with concrete aqueducts supported by columns, while maintaining a gravity flow, east to west, assuming it can begin at a reasonably high point at the reservoir. Now the question here would be about the implications and effects of building such a raised levee with a canal on top and connected intermittently with miles of aqueducts. For that imagine a structure like the great wall of China, much higher and wider than the largest ‘gors’ (earthen beam fortifications) ever built by the Ahom kings, running across the foothills north of Kamrup and Goalpara districts, into North Bengal and then through Bihar to the Kosi. Of course those huge pumps to push the water uphill will have to be there too.

What would be the environmental impact of such a structure in the region? Think of the ditches that will have to built on both sides of the levee, the stagnant waters it would impound to create hellish fens full of noxious weeds and breeding mosquitoes, the amount of agricultural land to be lost, the natural sheet flow of waters coming down from the mountains that will be trapped north of the levee to create regions of flooding where none existed before, and more. As if that is not bad enough, it would take one little plastic explosives charge to blow up an aqueduct section, to dump all the water out into the river below, without even causing any damage to human habitats. In a region that has been in racked by insurgencies born out of political disaffections, for over two decades, is such an act of sabotage a probability? If built, is such an enterprise sustainable? You be the judge!

There are plenty more issues that will impact Assam adversely. But the handwriting on the wall is already clear. It is not a realistic scheme. So, are the twenty-first century visionaries and world-class engineers in Prabhu’s brain trust unable to foresee all these? What are their motives? The answers might lie in examining the political expediencies embedded in the calculations of this scam. One might ask what the political calculations might be in the Assam scenario. I am not an expert, but my hunch is that while the big fanfare of river-linking is designed to promote the spirit of a resurgent India seeking a place on the table of world powers with a spectacular mega project undertaking as a vote getting ploy, with the taxpayers paying for the campaign (the Rs. 400 crore being spent in ‘studies’ and promotions is not coming from the political parties’ pockets); to leave Assam out of the picture would be a dangerous approach, considering the NE’s decades long disaffections. Therefore Assam too is included in the running, for the future spoils, even though there is probably zero coming into Assam from the 400 crores being spent now. And after the so-called due considerations, more than likely, the obvious will be declared, long after the votes from the election are tallied, with the blame to be placed on all the ‘pseudo-environmentalist’, ‘anti-Indians’, skittish neighboring countries like Bangladesh (we have already heard that one) and other ‘subversives’ for thwarting the efforts of the nationalists.

The author, Chandan K. Mahanta is an expatriate Assamese, architect by profession, who lives in St. Louis, USA. He is a 1968 graduate of IIT – Kharagapur. He can be reached by e-mail at: cmahanta@earthlink.net.