Almost six years and Rs. 414 crore later, Delhi and Haryana are still wrangling over the Munak canal and the water that it was supposed to bring to the Capital. The impediments that got in the way included environmental clearances, monetary disagreements and bickering over how much water Haryana is supposed to release for Delhi.

The latest stand-off is over the release of 80 MGD of water that Delhi claims it should get apart from what is being released and Haryana's demand for the release of Rs.106 crore.

GANDHINAGAR: A high-level committee of Government of India's (GoI's) finance ministry has cleared a proposal that would enable the Gujarat government to receive nearly 90 per cent of all funds over the new five-year plan, 2012-17, for completing the unfinished task of building canal network of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). Well-placed Sachivalaya sources said, the proposal, made on the basis of a plea from Gujarat, would mean all desert zones of India would be treated as drought prone.

MUMBAI: Unease continued between coalition partners, the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), as both countered each other on various issues, the latest being the performance of the state's irrigation department. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan took a dig at his deputy, Ajit Pawar, of the NCP. "Let them (Pawar and his departments) come out and say the numbers I quoted were wrong. These are the figures from the economic survey report, prepared under the guidance of the planning and irrigation departments," Chavan told ToI from New Delhi on Tuesday.

When completed, it will be India’s largest lift-irrigation project, boasting of the longest gravity canals, aqua-ducts and tunnel systems, spanning some 1,055 km. More than that, the Rs 40,000 crore Pranahita-Chevella project is being touted as the solution to all the problems of perennially parched Telangana: It is expected to irrigate nearly 17 lakh acres of cultivable land, which is currently at the mercy of monsoon, and provide drinking water to over a dozen towns and cities, including Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

To refurbish old tail-end sluices and construct new ones

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Monday unveiled a Rs 1,560-crore project to refurbish old tail-end sluices and construct new ones in the Cauvery delta districts to conserve rainwater during the monsoon and take measures to prevent incursion of sea water into agriculture lands. “Of the total Rs. 1,560 crore, Asian Development Bank will give Rs 1,092 crore as loan and the rest will be contributed by the State government,” Ms. Jayalalithaa said in a suo motu statement in the Assembly.

Gandhinagar: Amid loud talk about spread of canal irrigation, especially Narmada-based, leading to asharp fall in the amount of electricity going into the farm sector, a recent Planning Commission document has revealed just the opposite.

Titled “Annual Report 2011-12 on Working of State Power Utilities and Electricity Departments”, the document, prepared by the power and energy division of the Planning Commission, has found no decrease in the share of agriculture in the total sale of power in Gujarat.

Rs 540-cr project to irrigate 1.05 lakh acres; likely to turn Jammu into foodgrain surplus region
Jammu: The ambitious Ravi Canal project, which will draw 1,150 cusecs of water from the Ravi river in Kathua district and irrigate 1.05 lakh acres of agricultural land in the state, is finally cruising towards the take-off stage. The project will not only make the Jammu region self-sufficient in food grain production but may also result in surplus productivity.

A multi-benefit pilot project generating one-MW electricity from solar panels atop the Narmada branch canal was dedicated to the nation by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday.

Besides producing “clean energy” without causing any pollution, the solar panels would spare an enormous amount of land otherwise required if the solar power project was land-based. In addition, they save a huge quantity of water in irrigation canals from evaporation.

In a bid to check the theft of canal water, the Punjab Cabinet today approved amendments to Section 70 of the Northern India Canal and Drainage Act, 1873, to make it far more stringent and punitive. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the Council of Ministers under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. A spokesperson said that under the amended Act, the amount of fine for canal water theft had been enhanced from the earlier Rs 1,000 to a minimum Rs 5,000 and maximum Rs 50,000 or imprisonment up to six months or both.