Government mulls setting up Special Purpose Vehicle for river-linking

NEW DELHI: To fast track inter-linking of rivers, government is taking up the scheme on a mission mode and is contemplating constituting Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the purpose.

Minister of Water Resource, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Uma Bharati said two teams of senior officials of the Ministry will visit Bhubaneswar and Hyderabad this week to discuss inter-linking of rivers with state governments of Odisha and Telangana, at a review meeting here today.

Stressing the need for separate SPV for every inter-linking of river scheme, she also directed officials to look into the reservations of state governments regarding this and ways to sort them out.

On the Mission Ganga programme, Bharati said the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) will be the lead agency to provide all kind of information regarding Ganga conservation.

NIH, located at Roorkee in Uttarakhand, is a research institution under the ministry.

Referring to the inter-state disputes regarding water resources, the Minister said that setting up of a committee in the ministry to solve these disputes needs to be explored.