Inter-State Conflicts within the Indian National River Linking Project: A Case Study of the Polavaram Dam

Abstract

The Indian National River Linking Project (NRLP) is a 168 billion dollar project designed to connect the majority of Indian rivers to a gigantic `water grid'. In a planning stage since British colonial time, construction has started in 2004. However, inter-state disputes arising from the NRLP scheme are manifold. This chapter analyses in which way these conflicts are being managed and considers possible lessons to be drawn from it for regional cooperation in the South Asian context. The case of the inter-state dispute between the states of Andhra Pradesh, where under the NRLP the Polavaram dam is being constructed, and the neighbouring states Odisha and Chhattisgarh, affected by the construction, will serve as an empirical example. In the first part of this chapter the NRLP, its history and the proposed benefits as well as the extensive critique are presented, whereas the second part will look at the Polavaram dispute. Drawing on fieldwork in Andhra Pradesh, including qualitative interviews, as well as government reports and Indian English language newspaper articles, this chapter argues that though inter-state agreements were passed in an early planning phase, the lack of law enforcement leads to a continuation of the conflict.