The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : `Centre keen on National Waterways Project'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 11, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

`Centre keen on National Waterways Project'

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI, FEB.10. The Union Ministry of Water Resources has evinced keen interest in exploring the viability of establishing a national waterways project linking the Ganga with the rivers in the south, the chairman of National Waterways Development (NAWAD) Council, A.C. Kamaraj, has claimed.

As a first step, the officials from the Ministry, the Central Water Commission, the National Water Development Agency and the Central Public Works Department would visit Madurai tomorrow for deliberation. They would also participate in the seminar on interlinking of rivers to be conducted tomorrow by the Ministry of Water Resources and the NAWAD Council.

Speaking to reporters here today, Mr. Kamaraj said the Ganga - Kumari National Waterways Project, conceived by him and aimed at networking all major rivers from the Brahmaputra to Kanyakumari and facilitate the management of water resource.

It would help to mitigate the drinking water crisis and also meet the agricultural and industrial needs of the nation incorporating effective flood control measures and drought management practices.

This National Waterways would serve as 15,000 km long reservoir having a depth of 15 meters and a width of 120 meters facilitating navigation and bolster waterways tourism. "It is a cheap and economical transporting system for various goods and is capable of helping to generate 60,000 mw pollution free hydro power.

Besides reducing transmission loss, it will help to save nearly 40,000 mw power and aid in recharging the ground water," he said.

Nearly 600 million persons would be provided with uninterrupted drinking water all through the year and 150 million acres would get irrigated. The benefits of this project were many. For instance, the oil import would be reduced by 65,000 crore per year saving foreign exchange and would lend a hand to the nation in overcoming poverty and solve the unemployment problem.

It would assist in generating over 250 million jobs and the operational cost was negligible as no pumping of water in the entire network was envisaged. Costing approximately Rs.5.35 lakh crores with a return of over one lakh crore rupees per annum, the project could be completed in 10 years, he said. D. Sankaramurthy, a specialist in project coordination and A. Asokan Chakravarthy from the US, claimed that this mega project, if implemented, would become the pride of the nation.

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