Sethi who assumed office on Monday as new minister for water resources replacing CP Thakur said that he will study all the new proposals mooted by his predecessor like inter-linking of inter-state river basins and shifting water from states list to concurrent list under Constitution before taking a final view on the matter. But the government will go ahead with the programmes of water harvesting, minor irrigation development, conjunctive use of ground and surface water on war footing.

There will also be necessary regulations on use of ground water and mandatory rainwater harvesting in urban cities. The state governments will bring in suitable legislations in this connection with the advice of the Centre, he said.

Sethi spoke at length of some on-going irrigation projects in his home state, Orissa and said that he would see that these projects are completed a early as possible so the the recurring drought situation in the erstwhile Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput districts of the state soon becomes a matter of history and green revolution is ushered in the state as desired by the Planning Commission.

The four major projects on-going in Orissa are, Upper Indravati with an estimated cost of Rs 718.70 crore, Upper Kolab with an estimated cost of Rs 261 crore, Lower Indra with an estimated cost of Rs 211.70 crore and Lower Suktel with an estimated cost of Rs 217.13 crore. Besides there are three medium projects on-going in the state like Upper Jonk with an estimated cost of Rs 141.22 crore, Tithlagarh with an estimated cost of Rs 54.37 crore and Telengiri with an estimated cost of Rs 88.61 crore.