Kerala to constitute body to protect rivers

The Kerala government today said it would constitute a common body that would oversee protection of all the rivers in the state.
A new legislation would be introduced for the creation of the river basin authority, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in the assembly.
He said the objective was to have a common authority instead of a separate one for each river.
The chief minister was replying to a calling attention motion of S Sharma (CPI-M).
The process of bringing in a new law for preserving the Periyar river is also in progress, he said.
Vijayan said the recent NITI Aayog meeting saw discussions on steps to preserve rivers and added that the Centre offered help to clean the Bharatpuzha and Periyar rivers and the Vembanad lake in Kerala.

"Government will take necessary steps to prepare a detailed project report for cleaning these rivers," Vijayan said.