Supported by Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia

বাংলাদেশ পরিবেশ নেটওয়ার্ক (বেন)

A global network to help Bangladesh protect her environment

www.BEN-Global.org

http://listserv.cc.emory.edu/archives/ben.html

Background

1. On February 27, the Indian Supreme Court ordered the Indian government to start implementing the Indian River Linking Project (IRLP) within 30 days and complete it by 2016.[1]
2. The order came as a rude shock after several years’ hiatus during which the IRLP had somewhat receded from the scene. True that IRLP was never completely abandoned by the Indian government, even after the strong protest it generated both inside and outside India in 2002 when proponents of IRLP pushed it through an earlier Supreme Court ruling. This time, however, the court has gone further, forming even a project implementation committee.
3. According to various sources, IRLP envisages transfer of 334 billion cubic meters of water through the construction of 30 inter-river links, involving 36 big dams, 94 tunnels, and 10,876 kilometers of canals. The project has two parts, namely the Himalayan and the Peninsular (see IRLP map in Figure 1 below), and the estimated cost of the project varies from $150 to 250 billion.[2]
4. The project is based on the notion that some river basins are “surplus” while others are “deficit,” so that transfer of water from the former to the latter will be beneficial. However, this is a classic example of erroneous and dangerous abstraction based on a very superficial understanding of the nature of the problem.
5. A closer examination shows that different rivers with different volumes of annual and seasonal discharge and flowing through different terrains are part of the earth’s natural diversity, just as hills and valleys of different elevations. Each river develops a unique ecology (with corresponding flora and fauna) and economy (with corresponding cropping, settlement, and transportation pattern, etc.) and culture. Large-scale diversion of water from one basin to another ultimately harms both, as earlier examples show. For example, diversion of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers led to the death of the Aral Sea and gave rise to new problems of waterlogging and salinity in Kazakhstan (see pictures in Figure 2a and 2b below).
6. Researchers have expressed doubts about IRLP on grounds of lack of technical, financial, and economic feasibility and viability. They have pointed out further that transfer from another river cannot overcome the perceived scarcity of water if choices with regard to crops, irrigation method, settlement and consumption pattern, etc. are not appropriate.
7. River intervention projects like IRLP embody the Commercial Approach, which deems river water flowing into the sea a waste.[3] Unfortunately, this approach leads to conflicts among co-riparian regions, states, and countries, because the volume of water is finite. It ultimately harms the river, sometimes causing its death, as has actually happened to several important rivers of the world. The approach is also harmful to the ecology of the river estuary and the marine environment.
8. Projects like IRLP are, instead of being the product of objective and comprehensive analysis, often the result of a push from vested interests, as represented by the dam construction industry, engineering and consultancy firms, and other agencies and individuals who hope to get a share of the project budget.
9. Though the Himalayan and Peninsular parts of IRLP are often presented as separate, they are actually connected by several links (see map in Figure 1), and the main purpose of the project is to transfer water from the Brahmaputra and the Ganges Rivers to the south and west of India.
10. Since 1974, India has been already transferring the Ganges flow away from Bangladesh through its Farakka barrage, causing drastic reduction of the downstream flow and enormous harm to the lower riparian country, Bangladesh (see Figures 3, 4, and 5). India is diverting Teesta flow through her Gajoldoba barrage, the downstream part of the river drying up in Bangladesh (see Figure 6). These and other diversions have led to a drastic reduction in the sediment flow that is the key to Bangladesh’s survival against sea-level rise caused by climate change (see Figure 7). India is putting around Bangladesh a ring of dams, barrages, and other water diversionary and flow control structures, which will choke off all river flow to Bangladesh (see Figure 8).
11. Due to the diversion already carried out, the Brahmaputra River now serves as the source of about 70 percent of the river water flow of Bangladesh during the dry season. Therefore, diversion of the Brahmaputra flow and added diversion of the Ganges flow and their tributaries through IRLP will lead to the certain death of Bangladesh’s remaining rivers.
12. Both the Brahmaputra and the Ganges are international rivers. After flowing through India they enter Bangladesh before reaching the Bay of Bengal. Therefore, India does not have the right to transfer unilaterally water from them and their tributaries. IRLP clearly violates the 1997 UN Convention on Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses.[4] It contravenes the convention’s Article 7 which forbids countries from taking steps that can cause significant harm to co-riparian countries. IRLP violates the Convention’s Articles 20 and 23 that call for the preservation of ecosystems of the river basin and of the marine environment, respectively. It violates Article 6 that asks countries to take into account co-riparian countries’ social and economic needs, existing and potential use, and size and interests of the population that depend on the river.
13. There are reports that China is considering diversion of water from Yarlung Tsangpo, the upper reach of the Brahmaputra River lying in Tibet of China. It is highly contradictory on the part of India to oppose Chinese plans to divert the Brahmaputra flow and ask Bangladesh to join her in this opposition, while itself engaging in the diversion of river water away from Bangladesh. The competing diver diversion plans and projects of China and India illustrate the conflicts that the Commercial Approach to rivers generates.
14. India’s diversion of river water away from Bangladesh has harmed significantly Indo-Bangladesh relationship and has emerged as the most important obstacle to the promotion of cooperation between these two countries in other areas. For example, it has made it difficult for Bangladesh to grant India transit through her territory to India’s northeastern states. IRLP will further damage the Indo-Bangladesh relationship and will make cooperation almost impossible in the future.

Demands and recommendations

15. In view of the above, Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN), the global network of non-resident Bangladeshis, joined by other Bangladeshi organizations and citizens, and their international friends,
    1. Demands that India stops proceeding further with the river linking project, in so far as it affects international rivers, such as the Brahmaputra and the Ganges and their tributaries. Though we are opposed to the river linking in general, we leave it up to Indian citizens themselves whether they would like linking of rivers that are entirely domestic to India.
    2. Demands that India decommissions Farakka barrage, Gajoldoba barrage, and all other dams and barrages that it has constructed on international rivers and rivers that affect the flows of these international rivers.
    3. Demands that India abandons all under-construction and planned diversionary and unilateral flow control structures on rivers that enter from India to Bangladesh
    4. Recommends that India abandons the current Commercial Approach to rivers and instead adopts the Ecological Approach that discourages intervention in the direction and volume of natural river flow so that rivers can be bonds of friendship among co-riparian neighbors instead of being a source of contention and conflict. The only adoption of the Ecological approach can give India the moral right to oppose China’s plan of diversion of the Brahmanputra flow and to urge Bangladesh to join her in this opposition.

Sunday, May 13, 2012
4pm-6pm
Room 2-143 (MIT)
77 Mass Ave, Cambridge

The Indian Supreme Court in February of this year ordered the Government of India to implement an ambitious project to link the major rivers of the region in a “time-bound manner”. This $150 billion project is to interconnect rivers to transfer water from where it is deemed in “surplus” to where it is in “deficit”. The benefits of this project are doubtful and the possible harm to the ecology and livelihood of millions in South Asia are not being taken into account.

This project has two parts, the Himalayan and the Peninsular. The Peninsular component involves rivers that are internal to India. The Himalayan part involves the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, international rivers flowing through the lower riparian country, Bangladesh, before reaching the sea. The main aim of the Himalayan part of IRLP is to transfer water from these rivers away from Bangladesh and to western and southern India. (More sources)

The Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia considers this project ill-advised for a number of reasons which include

• Large scale artificial transfer of water causes significant harm to the river basins of the source as well as the destination. There are many examples of this, including the well-known case of the Amu Daria and Syr Daria Rivers whose flows were diverted from the Aral Sea and towards Kazakhstan for irrigation purposes and, eventually, led to the death of Aral Sea and increased salinity and waterlogging in Kazakhstan.
• Ecosystems are part of nature and should be adapted to, not destabilized on such a massive scale
• Many more essential and valuable results can be obtained with the proposed $150 billion of the project that could benefit the environment as well as address better the goal of greater food self-sufficiency and equality in society.
• The Brahmaputra River now serves as the source of about 70% of dry season river flow in Bangladesh. By diverting the Brahmaputra flow and by channeling yet more flow from the Ganges River, IRLP will strike a severe blow to the remaining rivers of Bangladesh.
• Many unknowns can render this project useless, including changes in course of rivers and changes in flow due to climate destabilization

Please join us and members of the community to discuss the project and its implications. There will be brief presentations by members of the Alliance on different aspects of the IRLP, alternatives, and a discussion on what is to be done.