Very impressed with the success of Godavari-Krishna River interlinking by the government of AP, the Centre has reportedly patted Chandrababu Naidu government asking him to go ahead with ambitious Krishna-Pennar-Cauvery river interlinking for reducing the imbalance in water availability among the three regions.
The mega project, which is touted as the biggest in India, involves two stages such as connecting river Krishna with Pennar and then linking the Pennar-Cauvery Rivers. The commissioner of Union water resources ministry has reportedly written to AP irrigation authorities for preparing a detailed project report (DPR) for the Krishna-Pennar, Krishna (Alamatti)-Pennar and Pennar-Cauvery (Grand Anicut) river linking projects.
Although these projects involves Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Karnataka states, sources say that the water resources ministry has handed over this responsibility of preparing DPR to AP due to its success in completing the Godavari-Krishna linking in a record time.
The National Water Development Agency (NWDA) has created proposals for diverting nearly 430 tmc feet of water each year from Mahanadi in Odisha through the Mahanadi-Godavari link canal. Then a quantity of 925 tmc feet of water from Godavari and Mahanadi will reportedly be diverted to Krishna River through Inchampalli-Nagarjunasagar, Inchampalli-Pulichintala as well as Polavaram-Vijayawada.
