CM for linking AP rivers

Hyderabad
Oct. 8: A day after the UPA government shelved the river linking project, the Chief Minister, Mr K. Rosaiah, sang a different tune and said linking of rivers within the state could be useful.

The Congress-UPA government dumped the river linking programme, mooted by the former BJP-led NDA government, because of the AICC general secretary, Mr Rahul Gandhi’s vigorous opposition to it.

Mr Gandhi had said recently that the river linking programme was unwise and would create more harm than good. Following Mr Gandhi’s cue, the Union environment minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh, had said the other day that the NDA-authored project was being dropped since it would cause a “human, economic and ecological disaster.”

However, Mr Rosaiah, who is in favour of river linking in the state, said that the young Congress leader might have been talking about linking of rivers across the country. “He may be referring to Ganga-Cauvery project which would benefit some states and harm others,” he said. Mr Rosaiah said the state government had envisaged linking of Godavari and Krishna in the state to save Godavari water from being let out into the sea. He agreed that there were differences of opinion on the issue and added that alternative ways could be explored for linking of rivers within the state.

In was in 1988 that the N.T. Rama Rao government tentatively started the inter-linking of rivers in the state by releasing Krishna waters from Pothireddypadu head regulator to Pennar Basin. The Krishna-Pennar rivers link was originally conceived during British rule.

There is also going to be a major link of Godavari and Krishna rivers through Polavaram project which is under construction. Mr Rosaiah can perhaps push his plans since Mr Ramesh had said the other day that the UPA government was not opposed to the inter-basin level river linking on a local basis. It was the former Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, who took the initiative to promote the ambitious national river linking project. The task force he deputed had said that if the rivers are interlinked around 160 million hectares of farm lands could be irrigated in the long run.

The task force had envisaged the project as involving a peninsular component and a Himalayan component. Under the peninsular component, a southern water grid was to be developed with 16 linkages and the Himalayan component involved conserving the flow of waters in the Ganga and the Brahmaputra and their tributaries.

In fact, while relinquishing power, Mr Vajpayee had requested Dr Manmohan Singh to continue with the river-linking project.
Source::DC