River Linking Project: A Solution or Problem to India’s Water Woes?

Abstract

The public discourse on the National River Linking Project (NRLP) has been hopelessly lopsided—with the protagonists of the project unable to take on the antagonists on either their rhetoric or their analytics. This paper contributes to the discourse by presenting a balanced analytical point of view from a series of studies conducted by the International Water Management Institute and its partners. The studies have analyzed the drivers and assumptions used to justify the NRLP and have assessed hydrological, financial and social implications of the NRLP water transfers. These studies find that the underlying assumptions have either changed over time or have flaws and alternative options are not given the consideration these need and deserve. Given these and many other factors, the hydrological, financial and social benefits and cost, if implemented in its present form, are mixed. However, the paper also argues that the idea of NRLP may have come a decade or two soon; and that a slew of upcoming contingencies shall not only change the tenor of the debate around inter-basin water transfers but even make a compelling case for them, even if in a different form than the present proposal.