Bedti-Varada river inter-linking DPR ready: Centre

New Delhi: Minister of State for Jal Shakti Raj Bhushan Choudhary on Monday informed Rajya Sabha that the Bedti-Varada interlinking project’s
Detailed Project Report (DPR) is ready with the Ministry.

The Ministry has directly prepared DPR without making a pre-feasibility or feasible report, Choudhary said while replying to a query by BJP Rajya Sabha member Lahar Singh Siroya.

Though pre-feasibility report was prepared for Netravati-Hemavati link project, further studies on this project was not taken up as after implementation of Yettinahole project by government of Karnataka, no surplus water would be available in Netravati basin for diversion through this link, the minister said.

Choudhary said the Centre formulated the National Perspective Plan (NPP) for the Inter-Linking of Rivers (ILR) programme to facilitate the transfer of water from surplus basins to deficit basins and regions.

The minister also said that state government had requested the Ministry to conduct feasibility of the intra-state link proposal of following rivers:  

After the study, the Jal Shakti Ministry found that linking Almatti-Malaprabha and Malaprabha-Tungabhadra was not feasible.

However, the Bedti-Dharma-and-Varada linking project’s pre-feasibility report was completed.

Diversion from Bedthi-Aghanashini to Varada and Aganashini-Vedavati link pre-feasibility was also completed.

However, the minister said the state government withdrew the proposal of Bhadra-Vedavathi ( Vani Vilas Sagar) link and diversion
of west-flowing rivers schemes (Barapole-Upper Cauvery link).