The Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) is now turning out to be an inter-state dispute between Rajasthan and MP as Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot has strongly opposed the petition filed by the MP government in the Supreme Court on the issue of ERCP and alleged that it is an attempt to deprive Rajasthan of its share of water.
"Madhya Pradesh government is trying to stop the work of ERCP and depriving the 13 districts of East Rajasthan of water," said Gehlot in a statement on Thursday.
Gehlot said that the DPR of ERCP is under the Guidelines-2010 of the Central Water Commission. He said, "the project has been made as per the decision of the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh Interstate State Control Board meeting. Madhya Pradesh has built Kundalia and Mohanpura dams based on this decision."
Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project
Claiming that Rajasthan is using the wastewater, Gehlot said that according to the data of the Central Water Commission's river gauge station at Dholpur, on average, 19,000 million cubic meters of water is wasted every year in Chambal and goes into the sea. The Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project requires only 3500 million cubic meters of water. "Rajasthan is trying to divert this wastewater through ERCP to meet the drinking and irrigation water needs of the people of Rajasthan,’ said Gehlot.
Accusing the central and MP government of depriving the people of Rajasthan of their rightful share of water Gehlot said that the Rajasthan government is committed to completing ERCP but the central government and the Madhya Pradesh government are making undue efforts to stop the rightful water of eastern Rajasthan. ‘Water is a very important subject for the state. Creating legal hurdles in the implementation of ERCP is playing with the future of the state,’ said CM Gehlot.
₹37,000 crore for ERCP
Notably, PM Narendra Modi in his recent visit to Dausa had said that the central government is committed to resolving the water problems of Rajasthan and a draft of a big project combining the ERCP and the old Parvati-Kalisindh-Chambal link has been prepared. The draft has been shared with the governments of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by the Centre and the central government will think of advancing it when the governments of both states agree on it. Although the proposal of talking to MP was refused by Gehlot later who said ‘why should we talk to MP? It is a project of Rajasthan and we'll take it forward.
The ERCP is a big political issue in Rajasthan. This ₹37,000 crore project was conceived by Vasundhara Raje in her last tenure but the government changed. Now the Congress government is taking it forward and has kept ₹13,500 crores for this in the budget of 2023-24 and at the same time demanding national status for the project.
