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Kerala MPs get assurance on river-link proposal

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 4. The Union Minister for Water Resources, Arjun Charan Sethi, is said to have assured a Kerala MPs' delegation that the Centre would not take any action on the Pampa-Achankovil-Vaipar Link proposal without the approval of the State Government.

An assurance to this effect was apparently given by the Minister when the MPs called on him today to press for dropping the proposal as it was based on the "wrong assumption that the Pampa and Achankovil rivers have surplus water, and therefore, 20 per cent of it can be diverted to benefit the Vaipar River basin in Tamil Nadu".

According to the MPs, the Minister informed them that the Centre would soon convene a meeting of Kerala MPs and Ministers/officials concerned to remove the State's apprehensions about the proposals.

In their memorandum, the MPs pointed out that the two rivers as it is could not meet the requirements of the people in the basin spread over the five districts of Pathanamthitta, Alapuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Kollam.

The National Water Development Agency — which drew up the proposal — did not factor in the various consequences of such action, the MPs said. Besides, the Pampa and the Achankovil were not inter-State rivers, and, therefore, belonged exclusively to Kerala.

Of the view that there was no merit in the NWDA's contention that the proposed scheme would benefit Kerala, the MPs asserted that there was no need for the proposed Joint Water Balance Study as the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management had already brought out a comprehensive report.

The MPs who put their signatures to the memorandum are: Ramesh Chennithala, Thennala Balakrishna Pillai, A.P. Abdullakutty, V.M. Sudheeran, K. Francis George, Vayalar Ravi., N. K. Premachandran, Suresh Kurup and Varkala Radhakrishnan.

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