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Tamil Nadu, Kerala disagree on river linking

Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI: Tamil Nadu and Kerala on Wednesday disagreed on the Pamba-Achenkoil-Vaippar river link between the States at the annual general meeting of the National Water Development Agency here chaired by Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz.

While Mr. Soz assured the members that the river-linking programme was “on,” but could be implemented only with consensus among the States concerned, Kerala Water Resources Minister N. K. Premachandran said the Pamba-Achencoil-Vaippar link proposal may be “permanently deleted” from the peninsular development component.

Tamil Nadu Vice-Chairman of the Cauvery Technical Cell D. Hari Ram, however, urged the Centre to take up the link as a “priority”.

He sought to know if the Centre had had any talks with Kerala on speeding up the matter.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had, in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on June 30, requested him to convene a meeting of Chief Ministers of States involved in implementation of interlinking of the peninsular rivers.

He had urged the Prime Minister to declare the river-linking project a “national project.”

The Tamil Nadu government had also written to the Chief Ministers of peninsular States, including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Maharashtra and Puducherry, for a meeting on interlinking of rivers in the peninsular region, which could be hosted by Tamil Nadu.

Responding to Tamil Nadu at the meeting, Mr. Premachandran said water was a State subject and the State legislature, “expressing the unanimous will of the people”, had passed a resolution on September 6, 2003, against the link. “The Kerala Government has already communicated our strong reservations on the link to the NWDA in September, 2003 itself.”

Reviewing the progress of the NWDA, Mr. Soz said the Detailed Project Report of the Ken-Betwa link between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh was expected to be completed in 2008.

Draft MoUs had been sent to Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan on the Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal link; to Gujarat and Maharashtra for the Narmada-Par-Tapi link; and to Gujarat and Maharashtra for the Damanganga-Pinjal link.

According to the Minister, a meeting of the Consensus Group for discussing the technical details of the Godavari (Polavaram)-Krishna (Vijaywada) link had been held between Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh. The views of the Andhra Pradesh Government were awaited.

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