interlinking of rivers will solve the water crisis in India

I am in complete agreement with my opponent that managing water resources wisely is very important for India and her increasing population. Pro’s analysis that some regions in India have surplus water and others are deficient is also correct. In theory, river water linking can provide a nice solution. Problems emerge when we look into the details of proposals available today. The major proposal today is for National River Linking Project (NRLP) [1]. If implemented this would be the world’s largest river interlinking project. There are huge economic, ecological and social costs associated with this project whose costs are unknown beyond vague estimates. Given the poor track record of Indian bureaucracy - any attempt at implementation is doomed to gigantic delays, cost overruns, massive corruption and poor standard of construction. As it turns out, better and simpler alternatives exist to river linking for meeting our future water needs. Cost makes NRLP impractical: We don’t really know how much it will cost. As per 2002 estimates, it is going to cost around $122 billion [2]. This is merely back of the envelope estimate which excludes cost of land acquisitions and rehabilitation of displaced people. To put this figure in perspective, India’s GDP is around $1850 billion in 2011 [3]. Annual revenue (not profit) of Indian Railways was $20 billion in 2012 [4]. We cannot really afford to spend $122 billion just because it looks like a good idea. We need detailed technical feasibility study (which we don’t have) and detailed cost-benefit analysis before we commit any money. All of us know the records of Indian bureaucracy in implementing large projects. Last year’s Commonwealth Games were originally expected to cost $306 million. The final cost was $2.2 billion [5]. The $122 billion budget would definitely be genesis of a million scams. Massive unaddressed problems linked to river interlinking: Environmental impact: The project envisages construction of over 80 dams [6]. The environmental impact (which is likely to be huge) is totally unknown. Construction of dams is likely to submerge large tracts of forest land and displace large number of people. Many other environmental problems like soil erosion are related to dams [7] Social Impact: Large amount of land needs to be acquired for construction of canals. Our record in providing compensation and rehabilitation to people affected by large public projects is extremely poor. No assessment of the cost of rehabilitation of people affected by such projects is known. Better alternatives exist: There are better alternatives to river-linking projects available for us to explore. Desalination of water is becoming inexpensive and practical. Cost of treating sea water is estimated to be $1/m3 for seawater and $0.5/m3 for seawater. These costs are estimated to fall further with development of better technology. Many countries (notably Saudi Arabia) already depend on this solution [8]. We are currently wasting huge amount of water through poor efficiency in irrigation. Better water management can bring down the demand for water [8]. References [1] http://nrlp.iwmi.org... [2] https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu... page 9 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://indiatoday.intoday.in... [7] http://www.arch.mcgill.ca... [8] http://nrlp.iwmi.org...'s%20River%20Linking%20Project%20-%20State%20of%20the%20debate-%20Shah%20et%20al.pdf page 9