Bengal government has not submitted any proposal for land acquisition for Teesta project: Centre

NEW DELHI: The West Bengal Government has not submitted any proposal suggesting solution to the problem of land acquisition for Teesta Barrage project despite being requested to do so, the Lok Sabha was informed today.

Responding to queries in this regard, Union Minister of State for Water Resources Sanjeev Kumar Balyan also described land acquisition as "main hindrance" in completing the project.

"The main hindrance in timely completion of the project is land acquisition. The state government has been requested to prepare a comprehensive proposal/solution for the same. However, the State Government has not submitted any proposal in this regard," Balyan said.

He also informed a Central assistance of Rs 178.20 crore has been released during the last five years to the project under the scheme of National Projects.

The project authority has not submitted utilisation certificate, he added.

The barrage is a multi-purpose project on river Teesta and as per initial planning, it was expected to have 3.40 lakh hectares agricultural land under its irrigation coverage.