Water & inter-linking of rivers - A Perspective

Konjam old post, but a relevant post before you cast your vote. Thinnai - Weekly Tamil Magazine about Rajini & his psudo politics.

There were raising questions about, inter-linking rivers and that is the final solution for india's water problems. Digging deeper, the problem is not on the average rainfall in India (last year TN case is an exception) but purely of our water saving methodology.

i dunno, where i read it, but the following is a fact. When Chennai as a city was conceptualised, our water basins ( a water basin is a place, where we save water either visibly or invisibly or both) was surrounding the city including the present Kollathur, Porur, Velacheri, Neelankarai, Avadi. The incoming population to this city in last 20 years is more than 35 lacs and the city expanded uncontrollably. I use uncontrollable, coz, i still see slums in one portion of chetput where the other side is a posh apparao avenue, when you take a MRTS train from Park to the present extended Adyar, you can clearly see that the track was laid on top of the slums & coovum river, the population of this city has grown into leaps & bounds. So the government needs to find a quick solution for the growing needs of the people, whethere he is poor, middle class or rich. what had happened is that, the so called water basins are now having multiple residential / commercial complexes on their surfaces... So we invariably put a condom on top of our water basins which led us to water impotency.

With a grand vision of communication, transportation, the roads are wearing a new "tar" glow and the irony is that all these new "tar" roads are simply a levelled "tar" addition on top of a muggy road, which means, eventually, regime after regime, year after year, time after time, the height of the road is being increased from its current position. Which inturn, increases the complexity of non-water-capturing streets crisscrossing the entire city. With the recent rain in the last week, i can only see a raise in the water levels of the coovum river, and some claim (Jaya TV ;-)) there is a great increase of the water level by rain water harvesting system. I dont suddenly believe that. So the water saving or rain water harvesting in real terms is blocked in all corners of the city. Just by plucking a hole in ur "mottai madi" with a PVC pipe to the ground alone wont fetch any great results.

Sometime before, Reliance for their cable laying operation, used a machine to strike a "line hole" in the main roads of chennai. To take use of the same idea, we can go a bit further. instead of line, we can always look at small holes. Holes which are not too big to wreck a cycle on the road. The idea is to have these holes dig deeper into the road, where it reaches atleast 75 -100 feets down ( coz, anyway, we are digging 200 feet for water ;-)) and covered with a plastic or metal dotted filters on top. A road like Nungambakkam high road, can easily accomodate something between 1500 - 2500 "water holes" without causing any damage to the road & traffic. You can presently see a gripper laid road in the main spencers signal at mount road. Similarly, we can think of this. This by implementing will create a "water holes" of millions across Chennai. So your rain water, the quite often"thanni talk lorry" spin off (of the total load of the tank, only 70% water is being actually carried to the destination and from there the % changes of the actual distributed water ) and other water sources can be easily saved for longer ground water levels.

OK. Now we will come back to the water inter-linking issues. Myself & saravanan, has done a few research a year before for doing a work on rivers (which eventually still inside the womb ) that it is very clear that there will more conflicts when allocating natural resource, than physical resources.

Avlo ethukku, oru oorula irukkara vaikaya vettin adutha oorukku thanni thanthanalayae arival vettu vangina sambavangal..TN history muzhukka irukkum..ithulla adutha state, adutha country linking ellam thangathu.

There were increased tensions & conflicts across the globe on water allocation. Adding to that, the notion of inter-linking itself is a flawed theory worldwide.

There are clear examples, worldwide, of how rechannling or re orienting the natural course of the river has spoiled not only the environment but also idea of using abudant water itself. In our own country, the Narmada river issue is yet to get resolved and environmentalists, natural lovers and others are protesting against constructing a dam (Side note: Talking on this, Gnana was giving his share of sacrifice of giving their property & land for the construction of the poondi dam, and their "Koola Theivam' is now under water...and the most hillarious moment is his question "Can this government provides submarines to worship our gods ? :-)))))) ) and the after effects of doing such things. For an argument sake, if we do accept that also, still this nation has not provided any compensation for the affected till date. "OOR NALATHUKKAKA THANODA NILATHAI THANTHAVANUKKU ORE PAISA THARATHA NADU ITHU" ..

There are "n" number of articles about why inter-linking of rivers will be a mega flop over here India Together

Do a search in google, and you can come with millions of papers, articles and reports of the effects, disadvantages & environmental damages of correcting the natural course of the rivers.

The alternatives available for us is plenty actually.
1.Sea water conversion is one major area of sourcing water. (atleast for chennai, mumbai & other coastel cites to begin with).
2.Using innovative rain water saving & increasing the no. of water basins.
3.Water Privatisation is another read this post on water privatisation
4.Terriroty based Inter-linking of water basins & sharing.
and lot's more to think about...

OK apparum pakkalam...thanni lorry vandhachu..................