The Centre, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh governments have reached a consensus on the project, said Silawat. He, however, said linking the project to UP Assembly polls slated to be held next year was not be appropriate as the inauguration was only aimed to address water needs of the two states.
Silawat further said since there were no more pending issues between the two states, the link project work will resume from November.
The Ken-Betwa project was mooted in 2005 to meet the water needs of the parched Bundelkhand region, which is spread across MP and UP borders. The scheme though has been embroiled in several issues for the last 16 years.
After lengthy negotiations on several issues, including water-sharing ratio, the two states and the Centre had signed the MoU on March 22 this year. As part of the project, surplus water of river Ken in MP will be transferred to river Betwa in UP for irrigating 3.64 lakh hectares in Bundelkhand. The projects involved construction of a 77 metre-tall and 2 km-wide Dhaudhan dam and a 230 km canal.