Task-Force to help build consensus on River Inter-Linking

News

• The Centre has set up a task force to look into various contentious issues relating to inter-linking of rivers.
• Role of this panel of experts will be to forge a consensus among states that are not on the same page over the plan to link rivers across the country.
• Apart from examining the existing links (30 ILRs) that are laid out as per the National Perspective Plan under both Himalayan and Peninsular components, the task force will also consider alternative plans in place of infeasible links in the present plan .

Why?

• The move comes in the backdrop of recent controversy over sharing of water between Maharashtra and Gujarat through two inter-linking of river (ILR) projects and emerging differences among other states over the plan.

Progress

• As far as actual implementation of the ILR projects is concerned, only three out of 30 such projects have, so far, got the Centre’s nod.
• The states opposed to the ILRs are mainly Odisha, Kerala, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and couple of those in the northeast.
• Except Punjab, the states which are opposed to the ILRs are all ruled by non-NDA parties.