River linking project snippets

The Supreme Court sought an explanation from Maharashtra and Gujarat why they were holding back the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for execution of two vital river-linking projects over which consensus have been arrived between them and the Centre. The SC also sought a status report from the Centre and chart for "time-bar' execution of the six approved inter-state river-linking projects involving UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa and Chhattisgarh and Union Territory of Puducherry.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, monitoring progress on the ambitious Rs 5.5 lakh crore river-linking project after the idea was floated by former president APJ Abdul Kalam in 2002, issued notices to the Centre and Kerala on latter's backing out from Pamba-Achankoli-Vaippar link agreed upon by it with Tamil Nadu. The parties were given time till the end of January to submit their affidavits.
Since Maharashtra's counsel expressed ignorance about the consensus between his government and Gujarat on the Par-Tapti-Narmada and Damnaganga-Pinjal links, referred among the six approved projects in its status report by the Centre, a direction was issued by the Court to the governments of the two to spell out reasons in affidavits for the delay in signing the MoUs.
The Centre's report said "concurrence" of Maharashtra and Gujarat was sought for the two links by the Union ministry of water resources and even the draft of the MoUs was finalised for both the projects but the matter is not being expedited as the Chief Ministers of the two states have not yet signed it. This had resulted in the delay of preparing the detailed project report (DPR) and taking up the execution work on priority.
The other approved interstate river linking projects are: Ken-Betwa, involving UP and MP, Parbati-Kalisindhi-Chambal between Rajasthan and MP, Godavari-Krishna for creation of a multiple linking network among Orissa, Chhattisgarh, AP, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.