Bhagirathi II: national water grid

09-21-2004, 01:33 AM

Srinivasan Kalyanaraman <kalyan97@g...> wrote:
Bha_gi_rathi_ will reach Kanyakumari. This is a national imperative,
an inevitable project in the march of the nation's progress to realise
Bharat vision 2020. We need 2000 young engineering students on their
motorbikes to blue-print, in consultation with every panchayati raj
institution, within the next months, Bhagirathi II as the artery of
the Grid, as the very life-line of the nation for generations to come.
dhanyavaad.

Kalyanaraman

Ganges more polluted than ever, says scientist
27-August-2004

News - New Delhi, A 20-year-old government project to cleanse the
Ganges of pollutants has "utterly failed" in changing the fetid
condition of the river that continues to acquire tonnes of wastes
every day, a scientist said Friday.

Scientist Veer Bhadra Mishra, who launched the Swatcha Ganga Abhiyaan
or Campaign for Clean Ganga in the 1980s, alleged that the grand Ganga
Action Plan (GAP) had become a victim of poor technical planning and
financial irregularities.

As a result of the government's laxity, the river has become more
polluted than ever and faecal-coliform levels have reached up to
47,000 times the Indian standard for human bathing.

Faecal-coliform is a measurement of human and animal waste in water.
But many Indians still argue that Ganges is a divine goddess and is
capable of cleansing herself.

"People say a single drop of Ganges water that grazes your cheek can
cleanse a lifetime of sins. But can that drop, befouled by the effects
of raw sewage, faecal-coliform, industrial effluents, floating animal
carcasses and human corpses, cleanse your body?" asked Mishra, who was
named one of Time magazine's Hero of the Planet for his efforts to
clean one of the world's oldest rivers.

Dismissing theories about the Ganges' miraculous powers as a fallacy,
he called upon environmentalists to create public pressure for
cleaning the river and its banks by smashing through the firewall of
political apathy.

He pointed out that the Swatcha Ganga Abhiyaan in cooperation with the
University of California had developed a non-electrical, technical
solution to clean the river along the ghats of the holy city of
Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

"This plan neither requires huge financial investments nor consumes
electricity and has been endorsed by the Varanasi City Corporation,"
he said.

British High Commissioner to India Michael Arthur has extended his
support for the project that aims at stopping sewage discharge into
the river.

At present, an estimated 114 cities spew filth into the Ganges,
resulting in the death of one person every minute due to diarrhoea in
the river basin, Mishra said quoting WHO.

Stating that self-help was the best help, Mishra, a former professor
of hydraulic engineering, called upon civil society organisations to
contribute to the initiative.
He also urged the Congress-led government to revive the GAP, launched
in 1985 by then Congress prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Indo-Asian News Service

http://www.keralanext.com/news/index.asp?id=45809&pg=1

Copy of letter addressed:

Chennai, 19 Sept. 2004

To: Hon'ble Union Minister for Water Resources Shri Priyaranjan Das
Munsi ji,
Govt. of India, Parliament Street, New Delhi

Respected Hon'ble Minister for Water Resources Shri Priyaranjan Das
Munsi ji,

Sub: National Water Grid for Developed India Vision 2020

I request, on behalf of Sarasvati Nadi Shodh Samsthaan, to rename and
integrate the project for interlinking of rivers into a National Water
Grid part of a National Mission for Developed India Vision 2020. This
will correctly reflect the multi-dimensional impact of this project,
involving the entire population of Bharat, a variety of water
resources â€" glacial, river runoffs, tanks, swamps, marshes,
groundwater and sea-water -- and local needs for drinking water, water
for agricultural production and industrial needs. This will integrate
with the National Water Policy of 1987 and resolve the recurring
floods and droughts in various parts of the nation. Think national,
act local should be the motto for involving the youth and the local
institutions in this national mission for taking India to a developed
nation status by 2020, usin the Perspective Plan drawn up by National
Water Development Agency as a principal component, together with other
watershed management and flood control initiatives.

We request that the project implementation should be announced
urgently, under your leadership and initiative, by constituting a
National Water Grid Authority and a number of Regional Water Grids and
Sub-Regional Water Grids as autonomous, statutory bodies, as
self-financing institutions, on the lines of the Konkan Railway
Corporation, with only the initial capital for the Authority and 30
River Link Corporations being provided by the Govt. of India. These
institutions should include all Panchayati Raj Institutions as
share-holders and implementing agencies for canal links, tanks and
management of watersheds. Such an arrangement will help in mitigating
problems faced by states like Kerala due to sand-mining on river beds
and desiccation of water tanks as water-harvesting structures.

Thanking you for your consideration and with the best regards,

Yours sincerely,

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman
Former Sr. Exec., Asian Development Bank,
Director, Sarasvati Nadi Shodh Samsthaan.
--- End forwarded message ---