Need law to deal with river desilting issue: Gadkari

Union Minister for River Development Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday called for a new comprehensive law to deal with the issue of desilting of rivers, along with measures such as inter-linking of rivers and construction of check dams to meet the challenge of floods in the country.

Addressing a meeting here of the Consultative Committee of Parliament attached to his ministry, Gadkari expressed concern for the plight of people of the flood-prone areas of the country and said the new law will be framed in consultation with the states, an official release said.

He also said there was need "to strengthen and improve our flood forecasting network".

Referring to the outcome of the Multi-Modal Ensemble (MME) and Global Forecast System (GFS) of flood forecasting, Gadkari said the lead time of advisory forecast was proposed to be increased to five-to-seven days.

--IANS

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