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should be caused to any other basin State. Even the US government adopted an
identical policy to resolve similar conflicting claims on inter-State river waters by
different States. Dr. Mukherjee posed the following questions:
i. Why is the proposed Ganga-Kaveri link given the topmost priority for a national
water grid?
ii. How could the Government of India think of diverting water from the Ganga,
starving the Bhagirathi-Hooghly and the entire lower reaches?
iii. Does the government consider Calcutta port as a national port and saving it from
gradual death a national objective?
iv. Are the sanctions of over 200 projects, drawing water from the upper reaches, a
ruse to show that there is plenty of water in the Ganga?
Dr. Mukherjee was distressed over the fact that certain projects for withdrawal
of surface water from the Ganga were sanctioned against the recommendations of
the Irrigation Commission, made as late as April 1972 that there was large scope
for conjunctive use of surface and sub-surface water, particularly in the Ganga basin
and that large tracts of the Indo-Gangetic plain are water-logged. Even in subse-
quent projects like the Chambal in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, water-logging
has become a problem. In case of the Gandak and the Kosi, the Commission felt
concerned about the dangers of serious water-logging in the command areas of
their projects. The high water-table, heavy rainfall and the flat terrain create serious
problems in those areas. While dealing with the 'Project Assist', where large-scale
draw of surface water from the Ghagra, a snow-fed tributary of the Ganga, was
planned, the Irrigation Commission suggested that ground-water in the canal com-
mand should be exploited (a) for meeting inadequacies, (b) for extending irrigation,
and (c) to minimize water-logging, which occurs with increase of irrigation in
the area.
Ignoring these warnings by the Irrigation Commission, what Dr. K. L. Rao stated
in the Lok Sabha on 16th August 1972 was just the opposite of the Commission's
views. He said:
Extensive irrigation has been developed on the Sarda since 1972. It was found later that
Sarda system did not have sufficient water to supply it to the fields. Most of the canals were
running empty and many foreign and Indian engineers and economists observed that the
Sarda system required reinforcement. Therefore, a scheme was sanctioned in 1968 which
supplies water from the other tributary of the same river and the project was named 'Sarda
assist'. No new canal system is to be constructed but only a feeder canal to the various
canals constructed several decades ago.
The statement hid the actual fact. The Ghagra is a tributary of the Sarda and
construction of two major barrages across the Ghagra and the Sarda and construction
of a diversion canal of 20,000 cusecs capacity with a future provision of a canal of
another 5,000 cusecs capacity on the other bank of the Ghagra were hidden agenda.
Therefore, the sanction of such a project which directly affected the earlier, much
after the Farakka Barrage, was not deliberately disclosed in the Lok Sabha. Eminent
MPs, like Prof. Samar Guha and others vehemently protested against such unilateral
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