Rivers of dispute

Lessons of the Cauvery, forgotten for the Brahmaputra

The government’s plan to create a Brahmaputra River Valley Authority makes little sense for several reasons. For one, the objective of the new authority – to put the waters of this extensive river system to gainful use instead of letting them wreak havoc in recurring floods – is no different from that for which the Brahmaputra Board was created in 1980 under an Act of Parliament. This goal has remained elusive and is unlikely to be realised by replacing the Board with another body — especially one with a governing system that may further complicate the process of taking consensus-based decisions. For, though the planned authority is to be chaired by the Union water resources minister, the chief ministers of all the riparian states will be its vice-chairmen. They will, obviously, have their own political agenda.

 

The Brahmaputra is the world’s fourth-largest transnational river, with a vast basin of 5.8 lakh square kilometres in China, India and Bangladesh. The 1.94 lakh square km in India spans six states — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Sikkim and West Bengal. In its over 640 km course in India, its flow is progressively augmented by over 70 tributaries. Assam, which bears the maximum brunt of the fury of this flood-prone river, is estimated to have already lost about 400,000 hectares of land – including prime land under tea estates – to floods, erosion, river-bed expansion and other factors. Deforestation and quarrying in the catchment of the river and its tributaries are exacerbating these problems.

Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether all the Brahmaputra riparian states will accept the idea of creating a new authority that would impinge upon their constitutional right to manage their water resources. A similar move to set up a North-East Water Resources Authority was held up owing to resistance from the states, notably Arunachal Pradesh. This apart, the dismal performance of existing river valley authorities does not inspire much confidence in the success of the suggested Brahmaputra authority. The Cauvery River Authority is a case in point. Though headed by the prime minister, it failed to meet even once in the past nine years, notwithstanding the fact that the issue of sharing the Cauvery waters among the riparian states has remained on the boil. When it finally met last month, its award directing Karnataka to release 9,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu, pronounced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was dismissed point-blank by Karnataka — though it later had to relent, following the Supreme Court’s intervention. With such being the clout of a river valley authority headed by the prime minister, it is not difficult to imagine the fate of the proposed relatively less powerful authority. In any case, since managing the main Brahmaputra river is technically challenging and expensive, it may be better to first rein in its tributaries, by creating enough water storage capacity on them to reduce the total water flow into the main stream. Besides, the destruction of vegetative cover of the river’s catchment needs to be checked expeditiously. The existing Brahmaputra Board can be suitably revamped for this purpose rather than creating a new outfit.