Ashok Gehlot demands MoU regarding PKC-ERCP project be made public

Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot Senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Saturday demanded that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments regarding the PKC-ERCP link project be made public. He said that the newly signed agreement was being kept a secret and people had the right to know whether this project would be beneficial.

This comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to lay the foundation stone for the Modified Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal-Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (PKC-ERCP) on December 17.

"The opposition has demanded that the MoU signed between Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh government under PKC-ERCP (Modified Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal-Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project) should be made public. People have the right to know whether this project will be beneficial for Rajasthan. The newly signed agreement is being kept a secret. It is being said that the new scheme doesn't have provision for irrigation which was there in the earlier ERCP scheme," Gehlot told ANI.

The Congress leader further accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of indulging in politics over public welfare works. He said that the condition of the ERCP project was becoming like the Barmer Refinery project whose cost was increased by several thousand crore rupees due to the delay.

I am seeing for the first time in my political life that the agreement between two governments is being kept secret...The public has no information about it...In 2013, when the refinery project was transferred from the UP government in Rajasthan, it was inaugurated but after the government changed, the BJP stopped the work and tried to restart it which led to an increase in the project's cost by several thousand crores (rupees). The condition of the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) is also becoming like the Barmer Refinery Scheme. There should be no politics in public welfare works but they (BJP) do it," Gehlot said.

The ERCP project, announced by the BJP in 2017-18, aims to provide drinking and irrigation water to 13 districts in eastern Rajasthan.