Govt to consult states on river interlinking project

Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti on Monday assured the Lok Sabha that the government would go ahead with the ambitious river interlinking project only after ensuring that it would not lead to any disturbances to environment.

She also said that the BJP-led government would treat not only the Ganga, but also all the rivers as divine and would pay equal attention to all of them. “Every river of this country, for us, is as divine as Ganga, because whenever we take a dip in any river, we say Har Har Ganga,” the minister said.

With her ministry being rechristened as “Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation,” Bharti on Monday faced questions over the issue of importance being given to one river that flows through mainly the northern part of the country.

“This is a huge country which is not limited to one river or to one portion that is North India where only Hindi speaking people live,” Tathagata Satpathy, an MP of the BJD from Odisha, said.

“There are so many people, so many languages, so many cultures and so diverse is this nation that let us not focus ourselves on one river, one religion and one language. We should think of our nation as a whole and march ahead as one united India,” he added.

Congress MP from Assam, Gourav Gogoi, also said the Ministry of Water Resources had “forgotten that it represents the whole of India”. “Across India, in many States, people have a spiritual and a deep religious relationship with the rivers – whether it is Krishna, Cauvery, Narmada, Godavari, Brahmaputra or Barak,” he said.

Uma Bharti, said she would request each MP and each chief minister to identify one river in his or her constituency or the state so that the Centre and the State government concerned could work together to address the problems related to it.