Optimal Water Utilization Planning For Inter Basin Water Transfers

Abstract

India is a country with vast land with sharp temporal and spatial variation in water newlineresources. Large part of the country solely depends on monsoon rains that are highly newlineerratic and variable over space and time causing typically non uniform distribution of newlinewater. Inter-basin water transfer projects seem to be an ultimate solution to mitigate water surpluses and shortages amongst the river basins. The Ministry of Water Resources,Government of India and Central Water Commission (CWC) constituted National Water Development Agency (NWDA) in the year 1980 with an aim to plan the trans-basin newlinetransfers on scientific basis. NWDA has proposed a perspective-interlinking plan for the whole country. The preliminary proposals for 34 transfer links proposed in this project are ready in the form of a National Perspective Plan (NPP). Inter-basin water transfer has been a complex water management system requiring huge expenditure to be incurred. Hence, proper investigation and careful planning is inevitable. There is a need for carrying out a study to optimize the resources utilization in the project with an aim to ensure maximum water transfers. The Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal (PKC) Link is newlineconsidered for this present study. The PKC Link is planned for transferring excess water newlinefrom the tributaries Parbati, Newaj and Kalisindh to an already existing cascade of 3 newlinereservoirs and a barrage on the main river Chambal. The proposed link comprises of three newlineproposed reservoirs, namely, Patanpur on River Parbati, Mohanpura on River Newaj and newlineKundaliya on River Kalisindh with three water transfer links (canals). The inter-basin newlinetransfer of water requires proper planning and management to have optimum benefits newlineaccruing from the utilization of water in a scientific way. At the same time the conflict newlinemanagement is one of the important issues since the riparian rights of individual basins are important.