00:00Now, every year, thousands of TMC of Godavari water flows into the Bay of Bengal.
00:06At the same time, and this is a problem not just in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka,
00:10farmers in Rhyal Seema, in parts of Karnataka, in southern Tamil Nadu,
00:14they continue to battle recurring water shortages.
00:17Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, therefore, wants to change that.
00:21His solution, link the Godavari to the Cauvery.
00:25Listen in to what Chandrababu Naidu suggested even yesterday.
00:57Andhra Pradesh, we are going to do the same thing.
01:01Andhra Pradesh, we are going to look at the photo of Kondal, Kuttal, and Kutal.
01:07Now, we are going to look at the photo of Kondal.
01:44So what exactly is Chief Minister Naidu suggesting?
01:47He wants surplus Godavari water to be put to use, productive use,
01:52and has called for the Godavari-Kaveri link to be declared as a national project.
01:58Link these two rivers, he says.
01:59It won't just address Andhra's issues, but also Tamil Nadu's, Karnataka's issues.
02:04Now, broad idea here is simple.
02:06Take surplus water from the Godavari, move it southwards to water-stressed regions.
02:12What would that route look like?
02:13We've shown that for you.
02:15Naidu's preferred Andhra Pradesh route begins at Polavarum.
02:18From there, the water would move through the Prakasam Barrage to Bolapalli,
02:22Vankacherla and Sumasila before eventually reaching the Kaveri.
02:26So it flows right into the Kaveri.
02:28So you have all the excess water flowing into the Kaveri,
02:31and therefore the rivers are interlinked.
02:33Chief Minister Naidu's call for Andhra Pradesh's existing Godavari water rights
02:37to be legally protected under alternative supplies are guaranteed.
02:41But this is also part of a bigger vision for the Andhra Chief Minister.
02:45He's also suggested a Ganga-Kaveri link.
02:49This whole suggestion of linking rivers, particularly Godavari and Kaveri, is not new.
02:56The Centre's national river linking project has explored a multi-state surplus water transfer route for decades.
03:02And under the Centre's proposal, the link would begin at Intyampalli.
03:06This will be in Telangana.
03:07It will move on to the Krishna through the Nagarjuna Sagar and then to Sumasila on the Pennar.
03:13And finally, it will reach, in fact, to the Kaveri in Tamil Nadu.
03:18Now, this is something that the Andhra Chief Minister has repeatedly spoken of.
03:23He's had a history, honestly, with river linking.
03:25In 2015, earlier tenure as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, the Patisima project linked the Godavari and Krishna rivers.
03:33His renewed push for larger river linking projects has now brought the Godavari-Kaveri proposal back into focus.
03:39How much water, then, are we talking about?
03:42Can this actually address some of the crises in states?
03:46Well, scaled-down versions of the proposal envisage transferring roughly 140 to 150 TMCO water annually.
03:52The projected benefits include irrigation across several lakh hectares, drinking water for millions and potential hydropower generation.
04:00There is a big price tag running into tens of thousands of crores.
04:04So why does Nadu want this project?
04:07Because he says surplus water flowing into the sea is a waste because there are so many drought-prone regions
04:14that are struggling for water.
04:15And this link, according to the Andhra Chief Minister, could strengthen drought resilience, support farmers and improve water security across
04:22South India.
04:24There is, of course, politics involved.
04:26Each state has different interests.
04:28Tamil Nadu wants additional water for its drought-prone regions and insists that any new supply cannot come at the
04:34expense of its existing Cauvery water rights.
04:37Telangana has raised reservations over this proposed diversion point, saying that it will hit its own water requirements.
04:44Karnataka is also seeking a larger share, arguing that its existing allocations are limited.
04:49Upstream states, this isn't just about Karnataka, Andhra, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Arashtra, they've all questioned whether the Godawari has genuinely
04:57got surplus water.
04:59Once their future requirements are factored in.
05:01The centre right now is pushing for consultations on this and circulating project reports and draft agreements.
05:07But at this point, it looks hard to get a consensus.
05:12Can a mega river linking project actually deliver what it promises?
05:15States are hesitant.
05:16There's no drinking water for water-scarce regions.
05:20There's a question of better utilization of monsoon surplus and potentially flood moderation and groundwater recharge.
05:26But there are also serious challenges.
05:28Climate change could alter rainfall patterns in so-called surplus basins.
05:32Long-distance transfers could involve significant losses.
05:37And altering natural river flows could affect deltas, fisheries, biodiversity and sediment movement.
05:44All of this, in fact, is at this point leading to questions about whether a river linking will actually happen.
05:51The Godawari-Kaveri link remains far from a done deal.
05:54There's no final agreement among all the concerned states.
05:56The centre is pushing for this at this point is something that you've got the Andhra chief minister pushing for
06:04big time.
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