Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an allocation of 1,400 crore for the long-awaited Ken-Betwa connecting project in her budget statement on Tuesday.
The project’s estimated cost is Rs 44,605 crore.
This is the country’s first large-scale initiative under the National River Linking Project (NRLP).
Drought-prone Bundelkhand, which spans 13 districts in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, will benefit from the project.
The project will irrigate 9 lakh hectares of farmland, provide drinking water to nearly 62 lakh people, and generate 103 MW of hydropower and 23 MW of solar power.
“The implementation of the Ken-Betwa Link Project at an estimated cost of Rs 44,605 crore will be taken up.
This is aimed at providing irrigation benefits to 9 lakh hectares of land, drinking water supply to 62 lakh people, 103 MW of hydro (power), 27 MW of solar power.
Allocations of Rs 4,300 crore in the RE 2021-22 and Rs 1,400 crore in 2022-23 have been made for this project,” Sitharaman said in her budget speech.
An agreement between the Jal Shakti ministry and Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh governments was signed in March 2021.
The project will also pave the way for more interlinking of river projects to ensure that scarcity of water does not become an inhibitor for development in the country.
The reservoir involves a submergence of 9,000 hectares area, out of which 5,803 hectares comes under Panna Tiger Reserve.
The latter includes 4,141 hectares of forest area, which is about 7.6 per cent of the total Panna Tiger Reserve area.