The Indian rivers interlinking project is a proposed large-scale civil engineering project that aims to effectively manage water resources in India by linking Indian rivers by a network of reservoirs and canals to enhance irrigation and groundwater recharge, reduce persistent floods in some parts and water shortages in other parts of India. India accounts for 18% of the world population and about 4% of the worlds water resources. One of the solutions to solve the countrys water woes is to link the rivers and lakes.
The interlinking project has been split into three parts: a northern Himalayan rivers inter-link component, a southern peninsular component and starting 2005, an intrastate rivers linking component. The project is being managed by India's National Water Development Agency, which is part of the Ministry of Jal Shakti. NWDA has studied and prepared reports on 14 inter-link projects for the Himalayan component, 16 inter-link projects for the peninsular component and 37 intrastate river linking projects.
The average rainfall in India is about 4,000 billion cubic metres, but most of Indias rainfall comes over a 4-month period – June through September. Furthermore, the rain across the very large nation is not uniform, the east and north gets most of the rain, while the west and south get less. India also sees years of excess monsoons and floods, followed by below average or late monsoons with droughts. This geographical and time variance in availability of natural water versus the year round demand for irrigation, drinking and industrial water creates a demand-supply gap, that has been worsening with Indias rising population.
Proponents of the rivers interlinking projects claim the answers to India's water problem is to conserve the abundant monsoon water bounty, store it in reservoirs, and deliver this water – using the rivers interlinking project – to areas and over times when water becomes scarce. Beyond water security, the project is also seen to offer potential benefits to transport infrastructure through navigation, hydro power as well as to broadening income sources in rural areas through fish farming. Opponents are concerned about well-known environmental, ecological, social displacement impacts as well as unknown risks associated with tinkering with nature. Others are concerned that some projects create international impact and the rights of nations such as Bangladesh must be respected and negotiated.