Water resources to get 10% more in budget, Ken-Betwa river link cleared

In the FY24 budget, the department received an allocation of ₹20,055 crore, which may be hiked to a little over ₹22,000 crore. “As of now I think the interim budget will be more about carrying on with the current work that is happening unless there are some major SOPs," the official said.

“We are expecting a normal 10% increase in our budgetary allocation. The work we are doing will be continued. In the Ken-Betwa project, the land acquisition is almost complete. So, this will be funded fully. There is the dam rehabilitation and improvement programme that the states are working on. We have funding for the rehabilitation of large water infrastructure, which is picking up pace.

We have the participatory groundwater management programme—Atal Bhujal Yojana—which is fully funded. There again a lot of work is happening. Mostly sanctions have been issued for Namami Gange. The main river has been saturated (in terms of resources), and now we are moving to tributaries as a priority. That work will also get the resources that it needs.

We are in an agreement that we will get the resources that we need to fund larger projects to ensure that project implementation is not hampered," the official added.

Queries sent to the departments of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation and expenditure remained unanswered at press time.

Atal Bhujal Yojana, a ₹6,000 crore central sector scheme, was launched in 2019 aiming at sustainable management of groundwater with community participation.

With an additional outlay of ₹8,000 crore, the Centre is also planning to extend the scheme to Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as they are found to be water-stressed and the proposal is with the finance ministry, the official disclosed. Currently, the Atal Bhujal scheme is being implemented by the Jal Shakti ministry in 8,220 water-stressed village Panchayats of Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Quoting government officials, Mint on 26 March reported that four more states were found to be water-stressed to add to the seven already on a Central list amid a growing crisis over groundwater extraction, primarily for irrigation.

The scheme got an allocation of ₹1,000 crore in the 2023-24 financial year. The ambitious Ken-Betwa project which is estimated to cost ₹45,000 crore is the country’s first river-linking project that aims to provide drinking water and irrigation to Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh, Panna and Damoh districts in Madhya Pradesh; and Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, and Banda districts in Uttar Pradesh.

A tender has been issued for its implementation, which is expected to be ready for implementation in the next two months—following delays due to environmental concerns over the concept of river-linking. The revised estimated cost could be ₹55,000 crore, the official said.

The linking of the rivers, it is claimed, will help transfer surplus water from the Ken basin in Madhya Pradesh to the Betwa river basin bordering Uttar Pradesh. The budgetary allocation for the interlinking of rivers was ₹3,500 crore in FY24.

The Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP) envisages rehabilitation and safety improvement of 736 dams located in 19 states, with an outlay of ₹10,211 crore. DRIP Phase-II became operational in October 2021 and is being co-financed by the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank.

Namami Gange is aimed at abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of the Ganga.