Politics
Appointed a high-powered committee for its planning and implementation
The Supreme Court has directed the Centre to implement the ambitious interlinking of rivers project in a time-bound manner and appointed a high-powered committee for its planning and implementation. Observing that the project has already been delayed resulting in an increase in its cost, Supreme Court has said that the Centre and the State Governments concerned should participate for its effective implementation in a time bound manner.
The Supreme Court also 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 Union Minister of Water Resources, its secretary, Secretary of Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and four expert members appointed by Water Resources Ministry, Finance Ministry, Planning Commission and MoEF. 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 two — the Peninsular component and the Himalayan component. The task force had also concluded that the linking of rivers in the country would raise the 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.
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