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

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The department of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation may get 10% more in the interim budget for continuing with marquee projects such as linking the Ken and Betwa rivers, dam rehabilitation and improvement, infrastructure rehabilitation, Namami Gange and Atal Bhujal Yojana, a senior official said. 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.