No more water crisis in several districts of Rajasthan with PKC project; MP will also get benefit

The project will benefit 3217 villages of Guna, Morena, Shivpuri, Bhind, Sheopur, Ujjain, Sehore, Mandsaur, Indore, Dewas, Agar Malwa, Shajapur and Rajgarh districts of the state. This project will ensure the availability of sufficient water for irrigation and drinking water to the farmers of Madhya Pradesh. The Madhya Pradesh government will build 21 dams in the state under the Parvati, Kalisindh, and Chambal (PKC) project.

This will benefit 13 districts of Chambal and Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. In this project, 90 percent of the amount will be given by the Central Government and only 10 percent of the cost of the project to be built in their respective boundaries will be given by Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The project will be completed within five years. Its cost is approximately Rs 75000 crore. Out of which construction work worth Rs 35 thousand crore will be done in Madhya Pradesh.

After the construction of the dam in the water sharing of Parvati, Kali Sindh, and Chambal rivers, the PKC project will change the lives of lakhs of farmers of both states. This will also open new doors of development in the tourism and industry sector. The problem of drinking water will be solved. Irrigation capacity will increase. The districts of eastern Rajasthan and northern Madhya Pradesh will benefit from the decision of water sharing of rivers.

Construction of the Parvati Kali Sindh Chambal project, Kumbhraj Complex, CRRS Complex, Lakhundar Barrage, and Ranjit Sagar Project along with seven irrigation projects will be undertaken in the upper Chambal basin. Under the PKC project in MP, the proposed small dams are aligned on the Chambal, Kshipra, and Gambhir rivers upstream of the Gandhi Sagar Dam.

Interestingly, the river-linking campaign was first proposed by the then Prime Minister of the country Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In the year 2003, a plan was made hence the river-linking campaign was proposed. There was a dispute between Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan regarding the construction of the dam and water distribution for the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP). The Rajasthan government contended that the dam was to be constructed as per the agreement arrived at in 2005, but the MP government did not grant NOC for ERCP.

In such a situation, the Rajasthan government decided to complete ERCP at its own cost and when the dam construction had begun, the MP government had filed a petition in the Supreme Court. Due to circumstantial changes, this decision in the interest of both states has been pending, but now Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan is unanimous on this issue.