Linking People with Rivers

Linking people with rivers could resolve water woes

In a wide ranging conversation with Abhijit Mulye, India’s waterman Rajendra Singh, who recently kick started a new campaign “River March” stresses the need to bring clean water and its continued availability back into public discourse.

You have been speaking about linking people with the rivers. What do you mean by that?

When I speak of linking people with rivers, it is not just an emotional attachment, but a scientific study of the riverine ecosystem and the elements that disturb it; efforts to do away with the ill effects of the elements etc. If you really want to link people with the rivers, the people who are saying this, should themselves get linked to the rivers. I’m able to ask people to get linked with the rivers with ease because I’ve spent 32 years of my life in reviving seven rivers of Rajasthan. We are trying to have more and more people who are linked with the rivers and then ask others to get linked with the rivers. In past one and a half years several people have come forward to do so.

But, then lately there have been several schemes in this regard. What you feel is the real problem with most of such schemes?

The ‘Contractor brain’ is the problem. It tries to search for profit in everything and most of the times cause harm to the original thing. Then the red tape in the government is another problem. I’ll give you an example. When he was in opposition and received best MLA award at my hands, Devendra Fadnavis had hailed the ‘River Revival Policy’ that we had drafted. When he became chief minister he told me that he had used several of the points from the policy in hundreds of his elections rallies and assured me that the government would adopt the policy. We gave him the draft and have been waiting ever since to hear about the state adopting the policy. The Jalyukta Shivar mission is a part of it for which we had given our inputs. The scheme is very good. In the first year, very good work was done. However, now sometimes I fear that it is turning into a contractor driven scheme like many others.

What according to you is the real problem behind the drought in Maharashtra?

The problem with Maharashtra’s water cycle is the cropping pattern. Cane is not grown at the place where it should be and grown where it shouldn’t be. Over and above most of the crops grown in the state are commercial crops. It any way would require more water. The cropping pattern needs to match that of the rain cycle. If that happens, the problems would be solved. The second thing I emphasized is that we have worked in Rajasthan. The technology used there may not be useful in Maharashtra. But, the system that has been developed there can be copied here in Maharashtra. Community based decentralised water management is the key that was used in Rajasthan. This includes deepening and widening of water bodies that have dried up, more number of farm ponds, check bunds, etc., to stop the water that flows on the surface and use it to recharge the aquifers. The most important thing for Maharashtra would be to stop the evaporation loss. Recharging ground water aquifers is the easiest of the ways to prevent the evaporation of water. The same can be done in Maharashtra, I’d told the government. Almost all of these things are included in the Jalyukta Shivar scheme. But, again, I’ll warn, don’t let the scheme to become a ‘contractor driven’ one. If this element is taken care of, I shall confidently proclaim that Maharashtra would be completely free of the word drought within five years.

How do you correlate water conservation efforts and linking people with rivers?

For me, all the programmes, like the Jalyukta Shivar programme in Maharashtra, the Mission Kakatiya of Telangana, the water conservation efforts we undertook at Rajasthan are some of the ways to what I call linking people with the rivers. Jalyukta Shivar can be the best way to link people to the rivers, if the scheme is implemented in the right spirit. With the help of such schemes, when water is augmented that would rejuvenate the rivers and once rivers start flowing people would automatically get attached to it. In short, this can be the way in which we can have solutions to all water related problems like floods and famine.

What is the message that you give to people?

We tell people that wherever the water is just running off, try to cut down its speed; after cutting down its speed, stop it; when you completely stop it, recharge the ground water so that it is saved from the Sun. If you save water in this way, it will save your life. This is the principle behind our programme of linking people with their rivers. Certainly, this is not as simple as it sounds. One has to understand the hydro-geology thoroughly for all these works. Sometimes, I fear whether all such things are really being followed. One has to stop the water at the right place to recharge the ground water. If not done scientifically, it can even drain off the ground water. Several times what happens that the government announces schemes, the contractors get the money. They use heavy earth moving machines and try to finish off the work in a hushed up manner. In such cases much work is done, but one does not know whether any real work is getting done.

What is the exact idea of ‘River March’?

With the ‘River March’ we are trying to make people understand the relation between their own health and the health of the rivers. Once they understand the relation, it then becomes simple to make them understand as to what they will have to do to keep rivers healthy, which in turn will keep themselves healthy. Once people understand these things, they would start speaking about it and in democracy, politicians have to listen to the people. Now, the state of rivers is hardly a part of our public discourse. Once it becomes a topic of discussion amongst the people, the right things would automatically follow. Hence, in a nutshell, the River March programme is all about making people aware of the questions related to health of the rivers.

Would you please elaborate the correlation of human and riverine health?

Human health depends on the health of their veins. Rivers are just like veins in our body. Whenever a drug is administered through an injection at one place in the body, it automatically spreads to the complete body. Similarly, whenever there is even a slightest of pollution, it spreads throughout the entire river. The pollutants also enter the water trapped under ground. They also enter our body through the drinking water and affect human health.

We created 11500 ‘Johad’s in past 32 years to ensure water security. Now, we want to make our politicians understand the same thing so that they too start caring for water. When people understand the facts about the water and start speaking that would catch attention of the politicians. Our efforts are aimed at creating awareness to achieve this effect.

What is the future course of action on the front of ‘River March’?

The River March started formally from four rivers of Mumbai on March 6, 2016. But, it would be carried out first all across our country and then it will also spread all across the world. And through this we shall try to find ways to tackle the global challenges like climate change and global warming. We would create awareness about keeping the flow of the rivers continuous and clean. Immediately after the river march in Mumbai, we had a meeting of all the participants. There it was decided how the programme should be carried out in the future. We are planning to have a separate team of volunteers for each river that would act locally. We shall start working with students and then gradually spread the message to the entire society. The day when the rivers and water will start impacting the votes of the politicians, it will become part of their agenda. We shall thus bring the topic to the forefront of public discourse.

Source: Free Press Journal

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Taxonomy

• River Studies
• River Engineering
• River Restoration