Vital river link project remains a pipe dream.

The Pamba-Achankoil-Vaippar link project, which will benefit Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Virudhunagar districts, has remained in the backburner for long, despite sporadic attempts to get it on stream.

It is one among the 30 projects proposed by the Union Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, and comes under peninsular river development component, comprising 16 projects. Its present status is FRC (Feasibility Report Completed) and it has to pass through several stages for fund allocation.

According to a reply given by Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti in the Lok Sabha on July 17, 2014, the scheme faces objection from Kerala through an Assembly resolution passed in 2003.

In his address read out at the meeting of the Special Committee for Inter-linking of Rivers in New Delhi on January 6, Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam urged the Centre to take up the project under National Perspective Plan as in the case of Ganga Rejuvenation Project. “In our view, waiting for developing a consensus with non-consenting States would only delay the project,” he said.

The Chief Minister appealed to the Special Committee to direct the National Water Development Agency, which prepared the project report, to prepare the detailed project report on priority so as to implement the link speedily.

The scheme was prepared with the objective of transferring water from surplus basins to water-deficit basins. It envisages diversion of water from the Pamba (third biggest river in Kerala) and the Achankoil to reach the Vaippar in Shencottah taluk of Tirunelveli district by constructing three dams - at Punnamedu, Achankoil and at a place 35 km away from Punalur-Pathanamthitta highway.



THE HINDU