World’s Largest Groundwater Recharge Project Unveiled; MP, Maharashtra Sign MoU
The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the 28th meeting of the Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra Interstate Control Board, held here after a gap of 25 years. The last meeting of the board was held in 2,000, Fadnavis said.
Bhopal: The interstate Tapti basin mega recharge project, billed as the world’s largest groundwater recharge scheme, was unveiled here on Saturday. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra for the implementation of the interstate project in the presence of Chief Ministers Mohan Yadav and Devendra Fadnavis.
The agreement was signed on the sidelines of the 28th meeting of the Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra Interstate Control Board, held here after a gap of 25 years. The last meeting of the board was held in 2,000, Fadnavis said.
Yadav said it will be Madhya Pradesh’s third major interstate river project unveiled by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the last few months. The other two interstate river projects are Ken-Betwa Link Project being undertaken by Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and Parvati-Kalisindh-Chambal Link Project being implemented by Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Through the proposed Tapti basin mega recharge project, three streams of Tapti River will be developed in collaboration with the government of Maharashtra to ensure optimal use of every drop of river water for irrigation across both the states, Yadav said.
He said both the states will move the Centre to accord it the status of national water project.
The total water usage under the project will be 31.13 tmc ft, with 11.76 tmc ft allocated to Madhya Pradesh and 19.36 tmc to Maharashtra.
The project after completion envisages to provide irrigation facilities to 1,23,082 hectares in Madhya Pradesh and 2,34,706 hectares in Maharashtra.
Official sources said initially, a traditional reservoir project of 66 tmc ft capacity was proposed under the project, which would have affected over 17,000 hectares of land, including forest areas and tiger reserves, and displaced around 14,000 people across 73 villages.
This earlier model has now been replaced with a groundwater recharge-based approach, avoiding displacement and environmental impact.