Wildlife clearance for Ken-Betwa river linking project to be

Union minister Uma Bharti today said wildlife clearance for the ambitious Ken-Betwa river linking project is "about to be announced" and suggested that her ministry is awaiting minutes of the meeting in which the approval was given.
Bharti said she is "excited" over the clearance, but is "keeping quiet" as Minister of State for Environment and Forest (independent charge) Anil Dave has asked her not to say anything in this regard till the minutes are "okayed".
"Wildlife clearance to the Ken-Betwa river linking project is about to be announced...The Environment Minister has asked me not to say anything about it till the minutes (of the meeting in which the clearance was apparently given) are okayed.

"Therefore, I am keeping quite...I am filled with excitement but the Minister has asked me not to say anything about it," she said.
Bharti made the remarks at the signing-in ceremony of a memorandum of agreement (MoA) between the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) for raising a long-term irrigation fund (LTIF) to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore.
The Minister said if the government manages to complete the work on all river linking projects envisaged, it will be able to irrigate additional 35 million hectare of land and generate 34,000 MW of electricity.

According to the Ministry, it has identified 30 links -- 16 Peninsular Component and 14 under Himalayan Component -- for preparing feasibility reports of such projects.
The Ken-Betwa project, the first such attempt at linking two rivers, is expected to irrigate 6.35 lakh hectares of land at an estimated cost of Rs 9,393 crore in the Bundelkhand region covering parts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.