Water is a resource that has to be managed. The time has come when we have to embrace and nourish our rivers.Half the nation is already in a position where China rubber bottom door mats factory they don’t start their day with a bath because there is no water. Our idea of a catchment area is that of a 35-km valley..We need to pay more attention to the Cauvery river itself. Otherwise, in a few years, we won’t be drinking from bottles, we will be bathing from bottles. If nature does it, it will do it in a very cruel way.For thousands of years, these rivers have embraced and nourished us.After that, there is just agriculture.If you show the farmer the economics of this move, that by planting trees and having horticultural crops he will earn more than he can by ploughing the land, he will naturally take to it. In Tamil Nadu, we are still largely flood irrigating, which is the cruellest way of using water. How will a river flow with this? Unless there is forest, there will be no river after sometime. In this entire distance, it is only in the first 30 to 35 km that there is any forest vegetation. If we change this, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka can manage their water situation. The plant may look green, but it suffers in many ways.
All along the river, wherever the land belongs to the government, we must do afforestation immediately.Today, all our rivers are in danger. If you put so much water in one place, the soil gets leached and all the bio-activity in the soil is reduced. Wherever it belongs to a local farmer, the government must move from agriculture to horticulture. This has been ignored in recent times.People think because of water there are trees. We have not really looked at how we can practice agriculture in a way that conserves water. If you ensure this on either side for a minimum of a kilometre — if we can do more than a kilometre it will be great — in 15 years, the Cauvery will have at least 10 to 20 per cent more water flowing. We have to look at how to revive these rivers.There are more efficient ways to practice agriculture today. The choice we have now is to consciously correct this or let nature do it. No, because of trees there is water. The Cauvery is maybe 40 per cent of what it was 50 years ago. The legacy we are leaving our children is such that no matter what you have, you will not be able to live well. Almost all our rivers are going through this, which is a disaster waiting to unfold.I have rafted down the Cauvery from Bhagamandala to the Krishna Raja Sagara Dam and the Brindavan Gardens in Karnataka — a distance of over 160 km. No, catchment should be all along the way
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