:: OP-ED

Saryu canal project in troubled waters

By Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Oct 19 : While trying to understand why hardly a year goes by when some part of India experiences drought even as another region is devastated by floods, one came across an amazing case study in corruption and apathy: the Saryu canal project in Uttar Pradesh. This project epitomises everything that has gone wrong with the country’s efforts at irrigating agricultural land — as had been written in this column last week, statistics compiled by the Union ministry of agriculture indicate that despite spending more than Rs 130,000 crore on major and medium irrigation projects over the last 15 years, the net area irrigated by canals in India has actually come down.

It is common knowledge that irrigation departments in states are among the most corrupt departments in provincial governments. It is also well known that over the years, Uttar Pradesh has come to symbolise much of what has gone wrong with the country’s development experience. Still, the case of the Saryu canal project is so stark that it bears some detailed examination. Here are some of the key findings of a report prepared by the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) of India that was made public earlier this year.

The project envisaged diverting the waters of three rivers — Saryu, Ghaghara and Rapti — that originate in Nepal. The waters of the Saryu and the Ghaghara were to be diverted to a main canal by erecting two barrages and another dam was to be built to divert the waters of the Rapti. The intention of the project was that through eight connected branch canals, the distributaries and minor rivers in the trans-Ghaghara and trans-Rapti basins would provide irrigation facilities to farmers spread across eight districts in eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Terai region near Nepal in and around Bahraich, Gonda, Sravasti, Balarampur, Siddharth Nagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti and Gorakhpur.

When work on the Saryu canal project started in 1977-78, the original targets were to create irrigation potential of 1,404,000 hectares in a "command area" of 1,200,000 hectares (ha) over a period of eleven years, that is, by March 1989. Ten years later, in 1998-99, the targets were scaled down to 10.76 lakh ha and 9.2 lakh ha respectively. At the end of March 2008, the actual irrigation potential created was only 1.9 lakh ha or a pathetic 18 per cent of the revised target that, in any case, had been substantially brought down. Around 30 per cent of the canals had not been executed although almost the entire amount (97 per cent) of the total funds allocated or Rs 2,522 crore had been spent.

Curiously, more than two decades after work on the project started, in February 1999, the Expenditure Finance Commission discovered that the Rapti part of the project was "not economically viable" and ordered that work on this section be stopped and a separate report prepared after conducting a detailed survey. The state irrigation department, however, did not stop work. A sum of Rs 68.65 crore was spent on this section of the project in the decade between 1993 and 2003.

In 2003, the state government decided to suddenly wake up. One executive engineer and two assistant engineers who were supposed to be responsible for carrying on work on the Rapti section in an "unauthorised manner" were suspended. Still, the department spent over Rs 7 crore over the next five years on maintaining the barrage that had been built, over and above the Saryu link channel and executed masonry work on a spur to protect the Rapti link channel from flood.

The CAG report notes that "improper planning and non-adherence to the instructions regarding the phasing and stoppage of work on (the) Rapti system resulted in blockage (of funds) and unfruitful expenditure of Rs 93.84 crore (till July 2008) besides recurring expenditure on annual maintenance of (the) barrage and the Rapti link channel to protect it…"

The Saryu canal project has been partly funded by the Union government’s Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) using loans from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard). Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network for Dams, Rivers and People, a non-government organisation, points out that the AIBP is meant for "last-mile" irrigation projects, that is, to complete work on projects that have been substantially completed and that the Saryu canal project should not have come under this category under normal circumstances.

The story of apathy, criminal neglect and corruption does not end here. A 76-km Khalilabad branch canal was approved in 1981 but a small stretch of 600 metres could not be completed because land could not be acquired as a graveyard fell in this stretch and the landowner refused to sell the land. A quarter century after construction work commenced and Rs 27.6 crore had been spent, the local authorities upheld the contention of the landowner.

That’s not all. Between 1991 and 1993, a 100 tubewells were dug ostensibly to control the subsoil water table. But these were not connected to the canals. Then, two-thirds of the pump-houses that were built became non-operational due to theft of equipment like transformers, conductors and starters.

The big picture: as per 2006-07 estimates, the CAG calculated that the time over-run on building the Saryu canal project is 19 years and the cost escalation is Rs 2,222.83 crore or an incredible rise of 743 per cent! The project is still not complete — till March 2008, 1,445 ha remained to be acquired; 2,220 km of canals, 3,673 km of drains and over 2,500 masonry works remained incomplete.

Will the project ever be finished? Probably not. And no one will be taken to task.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an educator and commentator