In the Budget presented on February 1, there was a mention of river-linking. But this did not find too much focus in the post-Budget analysis. The finance minister said that the implementation of the Ken-Betwa Link Project, at an estimated cost of Rs 44,605 crore, will be taken up. It is not this line that should have upped our antenna but one that followed. The minister added that detailed project reports (DPRs) of five river-linking projects were ready, namely Damanganga-Pinjal, Par-Tapi-Narmada, Godavari-Krishna, Krishna-Pennar and Pennar-Cauvery, and that the Central government would provide support for implementation “once a consensus is reached among the beneficiary states”.
It appeared that the word ‘consensus’ in paragraph 37 of the Budget had been used a little too casually, and gave an impression that the Centre was non-committal in its own duty of patiently constructing a consensus. There is of course a constitutionally obligatory role that the Centre is mandated with, and there is also a moral obligation to ensure that the states never lose sight of the idea of a nation, however amorphous and diverse a union it may be. The Centre is obligated to ensure that the emotional surcharge of sub-nationalism is moderated and balanced by a common pursuit that we often call ‘national interest’. Its role is to keep in mind the big picture and that means actively engaging in building a consensus with and between states.
There may be a reason for the Centre to throw in a casual ‘consensus’ line and not appear mission-driven by the idea (which it usually is with anything it wants to own up or appropriate). The history of river-linking and river water disputes in India has been a complicated one. The river-linking idea itself is a very old one and can be traced back to the arguments of Kanuri Lakshmana Rao, more popularly known as K L Rao, an engineer who served as an irrigation and power minister in the Cabinets of Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi.
Rao had played a stellar role in the construction of what Nehru called the ‘temples of modern India’—large dams. The Bhakra Nangal, Nagarjuna Sagar and many others in the early decades of Independence took shape under his watch. It was he who first spoke of a ‘National Water Grid’ and river-linking with the enthusiasm of an engineer. His brilliant book, ‘India’s Water Wealth’, has served as a valuable reference to generations of politicians and river basin planners.
River-linking to resolve the unequal distribution of water resources across India in Rao’s scheme had two components—the Himalayan and the Peninsular. At present, there are around 14 schemes under consideration under the Himalayan component and four under the Peninsular one. Besides, there are many intra-state river-linking ideas. None of these plans between and within states have progressed with the pace that they were imagined. Their eureka moments have long passed. Rao’s ideas that were pushed in the 60s and the 70s were abandoned for a while. The Vajpayee government owned them up again, and it was quickly shelved by the Manmohan Singh regime over legitimate ecological concerns. Now the Modi regime, with its passion for all things technological, has pursued it again but with a diffident ‘consensus’ clause.
Not just the Modi government, all previous regimes too were wary of getting between states when it came to water and territorial disputes. Politics is one part of the story but the real side is that resolutions are never ever in sight
because they are inextricably linked to sub-national identities. Sacrifice and compromise on either side would mean being permanently emptied of electoral goodwill. This explains why we are not a ‘nation’ in a way that it is aggressively marketed, a shimmering mountain of oneness shaped by sacrifice, but a union of states with deep water, territorial and cultural self-interests.
Water is on the ‘State’ list of the Constitution, which means the states are free to conceive their river plans, but water disputes come under the purview of the Centre. Paradoxically, most rivers flow across states and hence the Centre is never out of the picture. The marvel of our Constitution pushes the Centre and the states to constantly engage with each other and develop a consensus, and very clearly the onus of building that consensus is on the Centre.
The Modi government introduced an amendment to the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act of 1956 in July 2019. Earlier, state governments could request the Centre to refer a water dispute to a tribunal for adjudication. The amendment added an intervening mechanism. First, on receiving a request, the Centre would refer it to a Disputes Resolution Committee (DRC) made up of judges and bureaucrats, and give it a year’s timeline to reach an amicable settlement. If the DRC could not resolve the issue, the Centre within three months would refer it to the Inter-State River Water Disputes Tribunal.
Earlier under the 1956 Act, the decision of the Tribunal had to be published by the Central government in the official gazette. The amendment has removed the requirement for such a publication. It says the decision of the Tribunal will be final. Here, it is possible to read that the Centre is quietly removing itself from the scene of political landmines. The decision of the tribunal will never always be to the satisfaction of all parties involved in the dispute. Having to publish that would be seen as a political act and trigger emotional outbursts. Therefore, the Centre must have thought that a binding judicial decision was safer than consensus building.
There are at least three instances in recent decades when prime ministers were caught in a piquant situation presiding over inter-state water disputes. In December 1995, when P V Narasimha Rao tried to adjudicate the release of 11 tmcft Cauvery water from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalithaa walked out of the meeting after she thought his decision favoured Karnataka. H D Deve Gowda was then chief minister of Karnataka.
Later, when Gowda became prime minister, he got into a problem with Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu over the Krishna waters and the height of the Almatti dam. Again, when PM Gowda tried to negotiate the height of the Narmada dam, the then Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Digvijaya Singh, walked out of a meeting in which four CMs were present. There have been many such situations when prime ministers have been put on the spot due to disagreements over water. All parties involved in such disputes know that consensus is a chimera.
Senior journalist and author