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Chambal
The Supreme Court on Friday said rampant illegal riverbed sand mining has created an "environmental crisis" and wreaked "havoc" in the National Chambal Gharial Sanctuary, causing a grave risk to the gharial (long-snouted crocodile) preservation project. Slamming the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh for their utter failure in dealing with the issue, the apex court directed them to install high-resolution Wi-Fi-enabled CCTV cameras along all routes frequently used for illegal sand mining in the area. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta directed that live feed of such surveillance cameras shall be placed under the direct control, supervision and operational oversight of the superintendent of police or the senior superintendent of police of the concerned district and the divisional forest officer. It said these officers shall ensure continuous and effective monitoring of the CCTV feeds by designating appropriate officers. "It can't be gainsaid that th
A Parliamentary panel has expressed concern over the underutilisation of funds under the Interlinking of Rivers scheme in 2025-26 and urged the government to fast-track implementation to ensure the timely completion of projects. In a report, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources noted that the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) has been entrusted with interlinking of rivers under the National Perspective Plan (NPP) formulated in 1980, under which 30 link projects 16 in the Peninsular component and 14 in the Himalayan component have been identified to facilitate inter-basin transfer of water from surplus to deficit regions and improve water availability in drought-prone and rain-fed areas. The report noted that the scheme witnessed underutilisation of funds during the 2025-26 financial year. The fund allocation at the Budget Estimates (BE) stage was Rs 2,400 crore, which was revised to Rs 1,808.29 crore at the Revised Estimates (RE) stage, while the actual .