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| As a student of water resource systems analysis, I was expecting detailed analytics and graphics for optimising the use of water and capital using a range of computer-based modeling techniques while attending a talk on the promise of the river inter-linking project. Instead, I saw was a tacky and inept feasibility report (FR) for the first project being considered "" the Ken-Betwa link (K-B) in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. |
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| The idea of linking-up two rivers that receive their monsoon water load perfectly simultaneously is conceptually incorrect. Transferring water westwards from the Ken would reduce water for irrigation downstream of the proposed Daudhan dam. Banda and Ajaigarh lose and Raisen and Hamirpur gain in a zero-sum proposition. In contrast to the stated objective of river inter-linking, drought increases downstream on the Ken below Daudhan, and floods increase downstream on the Betwa below Parichha. The national objective is lost for the contractors' and rhetoricians' gain. |
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| As any resident of Panna district will confirm, the Ken doesn't have surplus water. The river does not flow in the summer months across most of its course below the Gangau dam "" it is a series of isolated pools of still water. Transferring water at this lean time is a travesty of the aims of the K-B project. |
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| Till recently, the UP government has been opposing the construction of the Left Bariyapur Canal emanating from Bariyapur Weir, insisting there isn't enough water in the Ken canal system to support this project. The UP government officials have so far been concerned that water diversion would lead to conflict within Bundelkhand (a new state perhaps?). Further, MP and UP have not been able to come to an understanding on the sharing the waters of the existing Gangau and Rangwan projects, much less the purported surplus on the Ken above Daudhan. Even the Standing Committee on Agriculture of the ministry of water resources could not get the state governments to finalise the actual water balance of the Ken. Which is why it is a surprise the state governments signed the MoU to develop the Detailed Project Report (DPR) in April 2005 with all these disputes still raging. |
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| The fudge: The water-balance which is at the heart of this project is fundamentally incorrect. The water balance only considers surface water, when only 22 per cent of the replenishable groundwater resources of Bundelkhand of some 10,700 MCM have been tapped. This fudge allows the Betwa to be shown as a deficit basin. Additionally, it is assumed every hectare of land irrigated in the Ken basin requires 5,327 cu m of water, while the corresponding figure for the Betwa basin is 16 per cent higher at 6,175 cu m! |
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| The impact of the K-B project on the incumbent Rajghat and Matatila dams on the Betwa has been completely ignored. It is likely these projects, Rajghat still under construction, would be rendered waste by the four projects to be built upstream. Has this economic loss been factored into the economic cost of the K-B project? The loss of power generation from these facilities (76 MW) would certainly negate the modest power generation planned (72 MW) by the K-B project, even if it was not consumed to provide lift to the water. Rajghat and Matatila are not trivial projects: both projects caused significant deforestation (15,000 ha), displacement of people (27,000). |
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| Dubious analysis: Summarising the project analysis, and related go/no go decision to a benefit/cost ratio and a project internal rate of return (IRR) is outmoded and incomplete, even if it were not based on the 1991 numbers, as it is. Outmoded, since investment capital is assumed to be free, depreciation, and interest during construction are ignored, and there are miniscule project revenues. Incomplete, because relief and rehabilitation costs for displaced villages (at least 10 villages comprising 8,550 people in 1994, based on Census data for 1981) have been priced inadequately, even if the area of submergence is not understated. The quantum of human suffering and displacement was improperly estimated for the FR by an agency which clearly doesn't understand EIAs or social costs. |
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| The economic cost of submergence of 6,400 ha or 10 per cent of Panna National Park, one the India's most picturesque and biologically rich conservation areas, has been priced at Rs 10,000/ha, never mind the recent Supreme Court ruling per the Godavarman case which values forest land on a net present value (NPV) basis at between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 9 lakh per hectare. The more accurate and only the economic NPV loss of Rs 448 crore completely negates the purported benefits for the Ken section of the project. |
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| Environment: The environmental section clearly illustrates the quality of analysis. "The impact of the submergence on the wildlife of the park will be nil, as the area coming under submergence is only 9 per cent of the total area of the national park and the wildlife has got its own natural characteristic of moving to the interior forest areas adjacent to the areas of submergence of the project area," is a statement out the report. A statement so out of time and environmental correctness in 2005, it suggests an intellectual deficit along with that of water. |
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| One of the many benefits listed is a gem, "Flower garden and water fountain should be developed and a good picnic spot should be made to the satisfaction of the tourists." |
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| Alternatives exist: What a sensible water management scheme for Bundelkhand would do is to capture as much of the monsoon discharge for year-round use. The enlightened Chandellas who ruled old Jejakbhukti (or Jijhoti) from Kalinjar, and built the famous medieval temples of Khajuraho taught us how this may be done. Tanks. Thousands of tanks abound in Bundelkhand. And it is these Chandella tanks which, a thousand years on, deliver the highest wheat yields in MP for Tikamgarh district. |
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| If a tithe of the Rs 4,500-crore were to be spent on desilting and deepening the tanks, so much more of the monsoon downpour which resulted in a flood on the Ken this year, would be captured. And that too in a naturally dispersed manner. |
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| Any large water project today must make its economic and financial investment case on a transparent basis using modern and updated analysis. By unbiased agencies, which understand social and environmental assessments, as well as rigorous hydrological and econometric forecasting. In a decision-making structure free from an inbuilt cognitive bias, where related agencies do not review each others' project reports! |
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| The writer is an independent infrastructure consultant, and the author of a recent book on the Sariska National Park (Indus Publishing) |
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