Gagandeep Singh stands at the edge of a trench cutting through a sugarcane field in rural India. He looks down at a dozen or so men toiling in the mud in plastic flip-flops and bellows: "Dig!"

There is no time to stop, explains Singh, a district development officer, as the chop-chop-chop of small, crude shovels gouge the earth. It is the sound of history being made.

The work gang is part of an ambitious project to recreate a mystical Hindu river about 200 km (125 miles) north of New Delhi. They are digging a canal in Haryana state that will, the thinking goes, eventually run hundreds of miles through three water-parched states to the Arabian Sea. The nascent waterway has been given the green light from Singh's bosses, but has yet to get final environmental or planning approval. A detailed government report is being prepared and, Singh says, he expects clearance, and the deployment of heavy machinery, sometime this year.