Ken-Betwa River Linking National Project

Why in the news?

• Recently, on the occasion of the 100th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Ken-Betwa River Linking National Project in Madhya Pradesh

Ken-Betwa River Linking National Project

• The Ken-Betwa Link Project is the first project under the National Perspective Plan for linking rivers.
• Under this project, water from the Ken River will be transferred to the Betwa River.
• Both these rivers are tributaries of the Yamuna River.
• This project is being managed by the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) of India under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• This project will provide irrigation facilities in many districts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
• This will benefit millions of farmer families.
• This project will also provide drinking water facilities to the people of the region.
• Along with this, hydropower projects will contribute more than 100 MW to green energy.
• This project will create many employment opportunities and will also strengthen the rural economy.

National River Linking Project (NRLP)

• The National River Linking Project aims to transfer water from water-rich areas to water-deficient areas.

Objective

• The main objective behind linking rivers is to try to maintain a uniform water level in all rivers in the country.
• Many parts of the country face drought problems while many other parts face floods every year.
• By linking rivers, the water level in them will remain balanced and both these disasters can be reduced.

Main components of National River Linking Project

• Under this scheme, there is a plan to build a total of 30 river links in the country, through which a total of 37 rivers will be linked to each other.
• For this, construction of 15,000 km long new canals is proposed.
• This project will be done in two phases.
• The first will be for the development of Himalayan Rivers, in which a total of 14 links will be built on rivers like Ganga, Yamuna, Koshi, and Sutlej.
• The second is for the development of peninsular rivers (connecting the rivers of South India), under which there is a plan to build 16 links on Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Narmada etc.
• This management is done by the "National Water Development Agency" (NWDA) under the "Ministry of Jal Shakti".

Linking of Rivers – Brief Background

• The concept of linking of rivers was first proposed in 1919 by Sir Arthur Cotton, the Chief Engineer of Madras Presidency.
• In 1960, KL Rao, the then Minister of State for Energy and Irrigation, revived the idea and suggested linking the Ganga and Kaveri rivers.
• Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi established the National Water Development Agency in 1982.
• In 2002, the Supreme Court directed the government to develop and implement a river linking scheme by 2003, with a target to complete it by 2016.
• Subsequently, a task force was formed for this purpose in 2003.
• In 2012, the Supreme Court once again urged the government to start the river linking project.
• In 2014, the Cabinet approved the Ken-Betwa River linking project.