River linking on priority basis, says Minister

Seeking cooperation of MPs in building consensus among states on sharing of river waters, Government said in Lok Sabha that five river link programmes, with focus on peninsular rivers, had been identified as 'priority links.'

Seeking cooperation of MPs in building consensus among states on sharing of river waters, Government on Wednesday said in Lok Sabha that five river link programmes, with focus on peninsular rivers, had been identified as "priority links".

The projects were Ken-Betwa, Damanganga-Pinjal, Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal, Par-Tapi-Narmada and Godavari (Polavaram)-Krishna (Vijaywada), Water Resources Minister PK Bansal said in reply to questions.

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These projects were "identified as priority links for building consensus among the concerned states for taking up their Detailed Project Reports," he said and asked members to take active part in building consensus among states.

Maintaining that the process of inter-linking of rivers would take a lot of work as well as time, he said "building of consensus among the concerned states was an uphill task. It may be that you lose something in the immediate future, but it has to be a win-win situation for all the states concerned."

Bansal said a comprehensive assessment of feasibility of river link projects, focussing on south-bound rivers, would be done in a "fully consultative manner" and added that the feasibility of linking the sub-basins of rivers in Bihar was also being explored.

He said pre-feasibility study on several river linking projects, including those involving Ken, Betwa and Kosi rivers, was in progress.