A Bihari friend at work with me says every single year there are floods in Bihar and they cause lots of property/personnel damage. Every one knows and wants that water to be diverted to southern parts / MP etc. so that at least those people can benefit from it and Bihar won't suffer from floods.
Its a pity this still hasn't been done.
Politics as well as foresight are the bane of our country. The Garland Canal by Capt Dastur was proposed way back in 1962 to connect all the rivers in India in a single grid which would cost less than Rs 14,000 crores. But who was or is interested?
Just look at the Rs 70,000 crores scam in Maharashtra where dams and canals for irrigation were to be made. That has been siphoned off by the politicians-bureaucrat-contractor nexus. There's zilch to show for the amount spent!
And then the interstate river wars are well known. Important cases are the Kaveri river water dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the Krishna-Godavari water dispute, the Cauvery water dispute and the the Ravi-Beas water dispute. Although fairly explicit constitutional provisions govern inter-state river waters, it is unclear whether existing mechanisms for adjudicating interstate water disputes are efficient enough.
The current Indian water-dispute settlement mechanisms are ambiguous and
opaque. A cooperative bargaining framework suggests that water can be shared efficiently, with compensating transfers as necessary, if initial water rights are well-defined, and if institutions to facilitate and implement cooperative agreements are in place.
I think we need to treat this as a national emergency to hasten this process as also introduce effective binding arbitration which does not exist at present.