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The Ministry of Jal Shakti told the Rajya Sabha that 30 Interlinking of Rivers projects were identified under the National Perspective Plan for Inter-Basin Water Transfer — 16 under the Peninsular component and 14 under the Himalayan component — with the National Water Development Agency entrusted with the work.
The Ken-Betwa Link Project is the only priority link project under the NPP to have entered the implementation stage, at an estimated cost of Rs 44,605 crore.
KBLP is to provide irrigation to about 11.88 lakh hectares, drinking water to about 62 lakh people, 103 MW of hydropower and 27 MW of solar power.
The Polavaram Irrigation Project, which incorporates the Godavari (Polavaram)-Krishna (Vijayawada) link, is classified as a National Project, executed by the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Polavaram Project Authority, and has received cumulative Central Assistance of Rs 20,658 crore.
Several links have been dropped or shelved — Kosi-Mechi due to international dimensions, Jogighopa-Tista-Farakka, and the Netravati-Hemavati link after Karnataka's Yettinahole project left no surplus water; Damanganga-Pinjal and Par-Tapi-Narmada were dropped from priority status.
The National Perspective Plan splits inter-basin transfer into two components with different logics. The Himalayan component works on the Ganga and Brahmaputra systems, envisaging storage reservoirs on the main rivers and their tributaries in India and Nepal to transfer surplus flows eastward and westward and to moderate floods in the Ganga-Brahmaputra basin — which is why several of its links, such as Kosi-Ghaghra, Gandak-Ganga, Ghaghra-Yamuna and the dropped Kosi-Mechi, list Nepal among the beneficiaries and carry an international dimension that has stalled them. The Peninsular component works on the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Pennar and Cauvery systems, moving water southwards down a chain of basins; its signature is the Mahanadi-Godavari-Krishna-Pennar-Cauvery sequence. In practice the Peninsular component has progressed further, and the two projects actually moving — Ken-Betwa and Polavaram — both belong to it.
Simple Analogy: The Himalayan component is about redistributing a flood-prone abundance across national borders; the Peninsular component is a relay race handing water southwards from one river basin to the next.
Entrusted with the work of Interlinking of Rivers — carries out water balance studies, prepares Pre-Feasibility Reports, Feasibility Reports and Detailed Project Reports for the identified links
Executes the Polavaram Irrigation Project along with the Government of Andhra Pradesh; the project is classified as a National Project
The protected area in Madhya Pradesh within which the Daudhan Dam on the Ken river is being built — the source of the project's central environmental controversy, given the reserve's own history of losing and then re-establishing its tiger population
Worked with the then Ministry of Irrigation on the National Perspective Plan and remains the technical authority on water resources assessment and project appraisal
Water — water supply, irrigation and canals, drainage and embankments, water storage and water power — is a State subject, subject to Entry 56 of the Union List. This is why every link needs consensus among the basin States, and why the Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal link had to wait for a Memorandum of Agreement between Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan
Empowers Parliament to regulate and develop inter-State rivers and river valleys to the extent declared expedient in the public interest — the constitutional hook for a national inter-basin transfer programme
An EIA forms part of the preparation of Feasibility Reports and DPRs for every ILR project, assessing environmental and socio-economic impacts; for Ken-Betwa a comprehensive EIA has been completed alongside an Integrated Landscape Management Plan covering catchment-area treatment, landscape-level ecological management, biodiversity conservation, command-area development and long-term environmental monitoring
For all ILR projects including KBLP, land acquisition and R&R components are included in the sanctioned project structure, and execution must conform to applicable environmental, forest-clearance and R&R provisions
The Ken and the Betwa are both right-bank tributaries of the Yamuna flowing north through the Bundelkhand region across Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh; the link transfers surplus Ken water to the water-short Betwa basin through the Daudhan Dam in Panna Tiger Reserve. The Peninsular chain runs down the east-flowing rivers — Mahanadi to Godavari to Krishna to Pennar to Cauvery — with the Polavaram project on the Godavari in Andhra Pradesh as its most advanced element, diverting 80 TMC into the Krishna basin. The Parbati, Kalisindh and Chambal are all part of the Chambal system in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the Chambal itself being a Yamuna tributary. The Himalayan links cluster on the Kosi, Gandak and Ghaghra — all Ganga tributaries rising in Nepal — and on the Manas, Sankosh and Tista in the Brahmaputra system across Assam and West Bengal.
The Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 and its tribunals — Cauvery, Krishna, Mahadayi, Ravi-Beas — govern the same rivers the Peninsular links propose to connect, which is why consensus rather than engineering is the binding constraint
Panna lost its entire tiger population by 2009 and was repopulated through reintroduction, making it a standard case study in both conservation success and in the development-versus-conservation trade-off that KBLP embodies
Polavaram's status as a National Project executed with Central Assistance stems from the reorganisation settlement, which is why its financing pattern differs from an ordinary State irrigation project
The Ken-Betwa project is framed as the answer to chronic drought in Bundelkhand across Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh — the region-specific justification that carried it past the objections
GS Paper 1 > Geography > Drainage and Water Resources; GS Paper 3 > Infrastructure and Environmental Conservation
General Awareness > Geography and Government Projects
General Awareness > Indian Geography
Which river is known as the 'Sorrow of Bihar'?
Answer: Kosi
River interlinking, Ken-Betwa and Polavaram are recurring Prelims and Mains GS1/GS3 topics
The 1980 plan of the then Ministry of Irrigation for water resources development through inter-basin transfer, under which 30 river links were identified
The 16 links on the Mahanadi-Godavari-Krishna-Pennar-Cauvery and western river systems
The 14 links on the Ganga and Brahmaputra systems, several involving Nepal
The combined Godavari (Inchampalli)-Krishna (Nagarjunasagar)-Pennar (Somasila)-Cauvery (Grand Anicut) link whose DPR was prepared because consensus on the Manibhadra and Inchampalli dams remained pending
The dam on the Ken river at the heart of the Ken-Betwa Link Project, located within the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh