Bhagirathi II: national water grid

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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

 

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,, Sarasvati Nadi Shodh Samsthaan.

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