UP CM meets Gadkari, discusses Ken-Betwa river interlinking

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari here today, amid a deadlock over the ambitious Ken-Betwa river interlinking project.
Though Adityanath did not comment on what transpired in the meeting, ministry officials said the talks largely revolved around the stuck project.
India's first interlinking of rivers project between the Ken in Madhya Pradesh and the Betwa in Uttar Pradesh ran into trouble after the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh demanded tweaking of the Phase-I plan of the ambitious project.
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had to step in to resolve the deadlock between the water resources ministry and Madhya Pradesh.

The Madhya Pradesh government had written to the Centre demanding a review of the water-sharing pact signed in 2005 between MP, UP and the Union water resources ministry, and inclusion of some new components in the Rs 16,000-crore Phase-I plan.
Uma Bharati, who was earlier the water resources minister, had said in Parliament earlier this year that the project would take off soon, and expressed unhappiness over this last minute demand from the MP government.