Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that it was becoming easier to arrive at water sharing agreements with neighbouring countries than to manage river water disputes between various states.
Citing water sharing and regional disparities as a major challenge to federalism in India, Singh said: "It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that we have found it easier to manage bilateral agreements with neighbours on river water sharing than domestic disputes between states.''
Singh was referring to the contentious issues of water sharing between Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the south and the equally volatile conflict between Punjab and Haryana is the north. Singh said besides water, the sharing of natural resources like hydrocarbons, minerals etc. was posing a major challenge to the federal structure of India.
Singh was speaking at the inauguration of the fourth international conference on federalism here today. The conference is being attended by delegates from 26 countries including President of Comoros and Swiss Confederation, Vice-President of Nigeria and Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
Singh said his government continues to have "some difficulty" in eliminating fiscal barriers to inter-state movement of goods and in the utilisation of natural resources. "This has posed a major challenge in the management of federal polity," he said.
Dwelling on the global situation, Singh said that economic integration of the regions and globalisation have been acted as a hormonising forces for past few decades. The Prime Minister said he could visualise how growing globalisation would make sovereign states irrelevant one day. "I wonder whether the day is not far away when the concept absolute sovereignty may itself come into question.''
This, he said, was likely to happen as the world faces major threats likes the global warming that transcends boundaries of the nations.
River Linking and Garland Canal Project are eccentric ideas. The reason Manmohan Singh find it impossible to adress the problems of Punjab and Haryana or TN and Kerala is due to gross incompetence. Not a single dam is built on Yamuna though viable and desirable by basin states. Delhi get sewage and drainage of Haryana as its share of Yamuna waters. There is an Indian proverb Nalayak Ka Basta Bhari- people who don't know their jobs carry heavy load of files with them.
Capt Dasthur estimated the project cost @ Rs. 2500 crores in 1976. NDA government revamped the project @ Rs. 560,000 crores including hydel power & dropped it. The concept-all surplus water in all rivers would automatically be connected, fed into major sea sized lakes, surplus water would flow into the sea. Within a decade the entire country would turn into a wet land and the granary of the WORLD! Calls for himalayan political will. PM - please consider!
This is the most difficult task facing the country. The problem is that we have had water shortages for the past 60 years. Any award, however judicious, is negated by the people and the politicians of a particular state. There is enough potential water to feed all the states if harnessed properly. Capain Dasthur proposed the 'Himalayan Garland Canal' in 1976 linking all major and minor rivers. This project is technologically feasible - contd.,
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