Nationalise inter State rivers

What is called the GST Bill is in fact the 122nd Constitution Amendment Bill. This seeks to vest certain powers, which so far have been in the realm of the States, in the Union government. This is a historic move that goes to integrate India as one land and one people with, of course, different flavours of regional, cultures and languages. One more amendment to the Constitution is urgently warranted. This is in respect of the inter-State rivers.

Like coal and iron ore and oil and gas, rivers are also a gift of nature . What nature has given to this land must be shared by all the people in all the regions in an equitable manner. There are scores of rivers flowing across many States and finally joining the sea. Should inter-State rivers like mines be considered as a national resource and not as belonging to any particular State? There are ever so many disputes in regard to the share of waters of these inter-State rivers. Because of these disputes, the optimum utilisation of water is not taking place and the construction of dams and irrigation schemes is stretching over decades.

The amendment to the Constitution should be to declare all inter-state rivers as national resource. The Union government should inter-link them, construct dams and reservoirs at many places, it should have national canals to distribute the water stored in all the reservoirs to different States. These inter-state canals should pour their water into a number of national reservoirs. There should be State canals which can draw water from these national reservoirs. The State canals can distribute the water among the districts in the best manner and for equitable development of all the areas within a State.

This system should be just like national highways, the State Highways and the district roads and Panchayat streets. The NDA governments have been trying to knit India into one land and one people, sharing the natural resources by use of science and technology. This way lies our prosperity and power and the welfare of our people.

We should, therefore, request not only the leadership of the NDA but also all political parties to come together to plan the optimum utilisation of the waters of all the rivers in the country and instead of a period of 15 years which has taken for the GST Bill to be passed the inter-state water utilisation scheme should take no more than 5 years. This should be our national resolve on the Independence Day. May the Prime Minister in his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort include this item in his vision for India.

By Dr T H Chowdary