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India Debates Govt. Plan to Ensure Everyone Access to Water by Interlinking Rivers
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE (IDN) – As another scorching summer threatened to grip India and rivers began running dry, a hectic debate ensued about the government’s Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) program to solve the country’s water problems.
Drawing attention to the water shortage and unequal distribution of water in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a strong champion of the program, recently pointed out that while some rivers are in spate others are running dry. “If there is inter-linking [of rivers], the problem can be solved,” he said.
There are stark differences in the per capita availability of water in India’s river basins. According to a 2015 National Water Mission report, the average per capita availability of water in 2010 in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna system was 20,136 cubic meters compared to just 263 cubic meters in the Sabarmati basin. (P02) HINDI | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
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