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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Interlink Rivers: SC asks centre to form panel to tackle drought, flood

Interlink Rivers: SC asks centre to form panel to tackle drought, flood

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published Published on Mar 2, 2012   modified Modified on Mar 2, 2012
-The Economic Times

The Supreme Court has asked the government to implement the ambitious interlinking of the rivers project in a time-bound manner to tackle drought and flood in various parts of the country. The court also appointed a high-powered committee for planning and implementation of the project. 

A bench comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia, Justice AK Patnaik and Justice Swatanter Kumar on Monday said the Centre and concerned state governments should participate for the effective implementation of the project "in a time bound manner". 

"We direct the Union of India to forthwith constitute a committee for interlinking of rivers", the bench said in its judgement. "The committee shall plan for implementation of the project," the bench said, adding the delay has already resulted in an increase in the cost of the project. 

It appointed a high-powered committee, comprising representatives of various government departments, ministries, experts and social activists to chart out and execute the project. 

The committee will comprise the water resources minister, secretary, environment secretary and four expert members appointed by the water resources ministry, finance ministry, Planning Commission and environment ministry. 

Representatives from state governments, two social activists and senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, who has been assisting the court in the case, will also be members of the committee. The river interlinking project was the brainchild of the NDA government and in October 2002, the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had formed a task force to get the project going against the backdrop of the acute drought that year. 

A Centre-appointed task force had in a report recommended division of the project into Peninsular and Himalayan components. The Peninsular component, involving the rivers in southern India, envisaged developing a 'Southern Water Grid' with 16 linkages. 

This component included diversion of the surplus waters of the Mahanadi and Godavari to the Pennar, Krishna, Vaigai and Cauvery. The task force had also mooted the diversion of west-flowing rivers of Kerala and Karnataka to the east, the interlinking of small rivers that flow along the west coast, south of Tapi and north of Mumbai and interlinking of the southern tributaries of Yamuna. 

The Himalayan component envisaged building storage reservoirs on the Ganga and the Brahmaputra and their main tributaries both in India and Nepal to conserve water during monsoon for irrigation and generation of hydropower, besides checking floods. 

The task force had identified 14 links including Kosi-Ghagra, Kosi-Mech, Ghagra-Yamuna, Gandak-Ganga, Yamuna-Rajasthan, Rajasthan-Sabarmati, Sarda-Yamuna, Farakka- Sunderbans, Brahmaputra-Ganga, Subernarekha-Mahanadi, and Ganga-Damodar-Subernarekha. 

The task force had also concluded that linking of rivers in the country would raise irrigation potential to 160 million hectares for all types of crops by 2050, compared to a maximum of about 140 million hectares that could be generated through conventional sources of irrigation. 

The fate of the ambitiousRs5,00,000 crore project proposing linkages between major rivers by the year 2016 remained a virtual non-starter and the detailed project report was put in the cold storage. 


The Economic Times, 28 February, 2012, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-02-28/news/31108060_1_river-interlinking-project-task-force-social-activists


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