Centre gets feasibility reports regarding linking of Sharda and Yamuna and Yamuna and Sukri rivers completed

Tribune News Service

Ravi S Singh

New Delhi, April 21

The Centre has got the Feasibility Reports (FRs) regarding linking of the Sharda and Yamuna and the Yamuna and Sukri rivers completed under the ambitious Inter-linking of Rivers (ILR) project.

Now, it has set in motion the speedy preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) with regard to the linking of these rivers.

The linking up of the Sharda and Yamuna (Sharda-Yamuna link) and the Yamuna and Sukri (Yamuna-Rajasthan link) will cater to states of Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

The Yamuna-Rajasthan link proposal is an extension of the proposed Sharda-Yamuna Link trans the Yamuna, to provide irrigation to the drought-prone areas of Haryana and Rajasthan which are facing problems of acute surface water shortage and fast depletion of underground water.

It envisages diversion of 8,657 million cubic metres of water from the Sharda basin at Purnagiri in Uttarakhand. 

The Yamuna-Rajasthan link is to take off from the right bank of the proposed Yamuna barrage and pass through Karnal, Sonepat, Jind, Hisar and Bhiwani districts of Haryana and Churu, Hanumangarh, Ganganagar, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer districts of Rajasthan.

Sources said the Jal Shakti Ministry is in constant touch with the state governments concerned and the stakeholders in a bid to expedite the works on the linking of these rivers.

The ministry has been tasked to build a consensus among states concerned on water-sharing, among others, as implementation of ILR projects depends mainly on that. 

Under the National Perspective Plan, the National Water Development Agency has identified 30 links (16 under Peninsular Component and 14 under Himalayan Component) under the ILR project.

The Special Committee on Interlinking of Rivers, constituted to expedite the execution of the ILR projects, has met 19 times.