Status of brahmaputra board and nebrra bill In the year 2012, a policy document on restructuring of Brahmaputra Board into a basin authority was circulated to all North Eastern States and West Bengal for their comments and views. All the NE States including Sikkim and West Bengal completely agreed with the concept note. Arunachal Pradesh while agreeing to the policy document expressed some apprehension which was replied by the Ministry. The policy document detailed the structure for the Basin organization. Thereafter, incorporating all the view points of the State Governments/ Stakeholders and in consultation with the Justice Doabia Committee Report on River Basin Management Act, 2012, the draft Bill was prepared. An Intra Ministerial Group was constituted by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation to review all aspects of the Draft Bill and the committee finalized the draft Bill on 11.2.2014. The draft Bill on NEBRRA was circulated to all the North Eastern States and West Bengal on 23.02.2015 for their comments and views. All the basin States agreed with the proposal of NEBRRA and the comments received were incorporated in the draft Bill. A decision has been taken to form a Corporation in place of earlier proposed structure of NEBRRA. Accordingly, the revised Bill with a proposal to constitute a Corporation is under active consideration in the Ministry of Water Resources. This information was given by Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today. Samir/jk
