National project status for Upper Bhadra; key meet on November 29

Karnataka is now one step closer to achieving national project status for the Upper Bhadra project (UBP), as the high-powered steering committee for implementation of national projects will take up the proposal at its next meeting scheduled for November 29.

The ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation has written to the state water resources department to provide updated status of the project and arrange presentations on it.

The agenda for the 13th meeting of the committee has listed ‘Consideration of Upper Bhadra project in Karnataka for inclusion under
national projects”.

The committee comes under the Central Water Commission and project preparation organisation of the Centre.

Water Resources Minister Govind Karjol told DH that he along with Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and other representatives of the state had met Central ministers and officials thrice to press for national project status for UBP, along with other projects.

“Granting national project status will help us in speeding up UBP. Successive state governments have pushed for the status since the project started in 2010,” he said.

Several districts of the Central Karnataka region, starting from Hassan to the undivided Kolar district will benefit from this project, Karjol said.

Revised estimates of the ambitious irrigation scheme will cost in excess of Rs 22,000 crore, he added.

UBP envisages providing both irrigation and drinking water facilities to several districts.

Around 2.25 lakh hectares of land in Chikkamagaluru, Chitradurga, Davangere and Tumakuru districts will be irrigated with around 19 tmcft of water.

The project also proposes filling up more than 350 tanks using 10.8 tmcft of water, along with augmenting the capacity of Vani Vilas reservoir by 2 tmcft.

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