THE Indira Ghandi Canal is a perfect example of how to spend $500 million badly. Running through the Thar desert in western India, it carries water from the foothills of the Himalayas to the taps and irrigated fields near the border with Pakistan.
Or rather it doesn’t. For most poor people in this the world’s most densely populated desert, the canal is little more than an inconvenient barrier for their camels. They get their water from traditional ponds, tanks and underground structures that capture the desert’s occasional rains and stay full long after conventional supplies give out.
A thousand kilometres…
