Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
generated in the economy would be Rs. 17,424 crore (0.91 percent) by Rs.
10,000 crore of additional investment in construction. Direct employment
in the construction sector would grow by 22.74 percent. Sectors such
as coal tar products, cement, electricity, gas and water supply would
experience a higher growth of employment than the construction sector.
Total employment in economy would increase nearly by 4 percent.
Household income would increase by Rs. 16,267 crore. All household
categories would augment their income. Aggregate private income would
grow by 0.76 percent.
THE CASE FOR A CAUTIONARY APPROACH
Against the economic rationale proposed for the project; there are
strong economic arguments, bio-physical and climate science arguments,
and ecological arguments 53 that advise us to exercise abundant caution
when considering such a large-scale engineering of our water resources.
ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS
The interlinking of rivers idea is based on the fact that there are
parts of India which have surplus water and parts that are deficit, and so
water must be transferred from surplus to deficit regions so every region
has the amount of water needed to support its population. However,
the concept of “surplus” and “deficit” has been questioned, since it
does not relate to consumption but economic activity. The transfer of
water across geographies is mainly supposed to stimulate economic
activity of agriculture, industry and services. But natural endowments
have always been different and so have the economic activities around
them. In an increasingly connected world, we are no longer dependent on
food or industrial products produced locally. If all food is grown in a few
“agricultural breadbaskets”, an urban region, which uses water mostly
for domestic purposes, does not need the same amount of water as a
rice-growing belt that feeds the whole nation. The counter-argument
therefore is that the economy has to grow within the parameters of locally
available resource endowments.
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