Water security is the key to development of a civilisation or a nation. The large disparities in the distribution and availability of water in India call for its judicious use through conservation.
The transfer of 80 tmcft of the water of the Godavari river to the Krishna river, as part of Pattiseema project, will also benefit Maharashtra and Karnataka States as they are entitled to draw an additional 15 tmcft from the Krishna, according to Ashwinkumar Balvantray Pandya, former chairman of the Central Water Commission.
Mr. Pandya, who is chairman of the Polavaram Design Committee, was here recently to deliver the Dr. K.L. Rao Endowment Lecture.
“The construction of the Polavaram dam is going on without any major changes in the original design. The Pattiseema project has ensured that despite lack of water in the Krishna, crops in the Krishna delta were not affected. The transfer of water from the Godavari to the Krishna had helped the farmers,” Mr. Pandya told The Hindu in an interaction after the lecture.
He opined that the concerns of Chhattisgarh and Odisha States could be addressed through negotiations.
Linking of rivers
On the progress in the proposed linking of rivers in the country, the former CWC chairman said that it was moving in the right direction. Clearances were obtained for the linking of Ken and Betwa rivers.
Mr. Pandya said: “The Ken Betwa project would facilitate sharing of water between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and benefit the drought- prone Bundelkhand region.”
