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American NRIs offer help in river linking project
They have offered both financial and technical expertise in the ambitious project, reports Lalit K Jha.
Non-resident Indians (NRIs) in the United States of America have offered their contribution – both financial and technical expertise – in the ambitious river-linking project, which aims at providing lasting solution to India's water woes.
Houston-based Socalingam 'Sam' Kannappan, who has been organizing the NRIs on this issue after the project was announced by the previous Vajpayee Government in 2002, told The HindustanTimes.com in an exclusive interview: "We are all ready to assist the Indian Government in achieving the project expeditiously."
Informing the keenness of the NRIs to help India solve its water woes, both flooding and water scarcity, Kannappan in a letter to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources Chairman, R Sambasiva Rao, said the NRIs would help in buying interest free bond if raised by Government of India for the purpose.
"We will help in rock drilling, drip irrigation, pipelines etc. and evaluate Texas-Mexico model for resolving conflicts between neighboring nations," Kannappan said in his letter.
The Rao Committee, which after the UPA Government came to power last year decided to examine in detail the inter-linking of rivers project and present a report on the subject on priority, recently invited written suggestions and comments from experts and others on the project.
The project, as announced by the NDA Government in December 2002, envisages linking of rivers in two phases. While, 14 major Himalayan rivers are expected to be linked in the first phase, the second phase includes linking 16 rivers of the peninsular India.
Besides providing water security, the ambitious project, which is likely to completed in about a decades time at an estimated cost of U.S. $ 118 Billion, is also expected to add 35 to 37 million hectares of irrigated land and 34,000 million kilowatt of electricity.
Arguing that the river-linking project was crucial for the all round development of India, Kannappan said: "We would not let money and lack of technical knowledge comes in the way of implementing this project."
Kannappan, who migrated to the U.S. Tamil Nadu in 1968, has over 25 years experience in petrochemical, power plant, nuclear and offshore design. He had also held a series of meetings with Suresh Prabhu, who was head of the river inter-linking task force under the NDA rule.
Devoting much of his time on meeting people and experts on the issue, Kannappan said: "There is a great enthusiasm among the NRIs to help the Indian Government on linking of rivers as we all know, what miracle it is going to do with the nation's development. We are just waiting for a direction from the Indian Government".
Kannappan, who recently visited South India to do his own study on the project, said the NRIs would soon formal a formal group on the interlinking of rivers in India as soon as the Indian Government came out with a firm proposal.
With a lot of new advanced technologies available in the State of Texas including oil and rock drilling, and easy availability of state of the art equipment for tunneling, Kannappan said the presence of the influential Indian community in Texas would come out hand in getting access to these for the river-linking project.
