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Water Resources Ministry sans Secy.

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI NOV. 3. The Ministry of Water Resources, which deals with disputes such as the Sardar Sarovar Project, the sharing of Cauvery water, the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal, water-sharing with Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and China, besides the rivers linking project, is without a Secretary for the last three days.

The Ministry is without an Additional Secretary as well. The Secretary of the Ministry, A.K. Goswami, retired on October 31, while the Additional Secretary of the Ministry, Radha Singh, has been appointed Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry in the Ministry of Agriculture. Last weekend, the Government issued orders for Binoo Sen of the 1967 Madhya Pradesh cadre to join the Ministry as Secretary. Ms. Sen was Additional Secretary in the Department of Animal Husbandry. D.C. Samant of the 1972 batch is from Rajasthan and will join as the Additional Secretary.

But just before Ms. Sen could join, the order was abruptly changed and she was posted as Secretary, Ministry of Steel. In her place, the Steel Secretary, V.K. Duggal (U.T. cadre), was named Secretary of the Water Resources Ministry today.Sources said the Government realised almost too late that Ms. Sen was from the Madhya Pradesh cadre and as secretary and chairperson of the Narmada Control Authority, she would have to adjudicate on the Narmada dam issue in which M.P. is a party along with Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

This stand, however, is in stark contrast with an earlier appointment of the former Secretary of Water Resources, B.N. Navlawala, who hails from Gujarat. It was during Mr. Navlawala's tenure that the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam was raised to 100 metres from 90 metres after an informal meeting between the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and the Chief Ministers of Gujarat and M.P., Narendra Modi and Digvijay Singh. This move was said to have been brokered by Mr. Navlawala.

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