Subodh Ghildiyal & Nitin Sethi/TNN
 
New Delhi, Nov 7: Mayawati's Ganga Express Highway may be in the crosshairs of Manmohan's Ganga River Basin Authority. The road project, designed by the  BSP supremo to connect Uttar Pradesh from its west to east along the Ganga river in a bid to etch her name in the history of the state, could run into trouble if the Centre decides to teeth the river authority with strong regulatory powers.

The jury is out if the river body, announced on Tuesday, was a Congress ploy to needle its bete noire Mayawati or just a poll-eve announcement to bolster its credentials among Ganga-worshippers.

Since the PM announced the river basin authority to regulate the "quantity and quality" in the basin, tagging Ganga a "national river", there have been doubts in UP if the target was the Ganga Express Highway and future developmental projects along the river. A state proposal for an international airport at Noida is already stuck in Delhi.

Crucially, questions are also being asked if the Centre exceeded its mandate by not consulting the states through which Ganga passes about an authority which is supposed to regulate the flow in the river — a state subject. The contrast is glaring as the Centre has withheld the creation of a similar body to regulate dams and other projects on Brahmaputra in deference to the wishes of Congress-governed Arunachal Pradesh.

While Mayawati's highway has secured all clearances, doubts on the Congress's intentions are deepened by its history when the project met with strong opposition from central ministries and was cleared after a long delay following the Planning Commission's refusal to play ball.

The river authority, the UP government believes, could not take decisions retrospectively and the highway was safe. But setting up of norms and a fresh clearance window could take its toll on the pace of project implementation. Though the Ganga Flood Control Commission in Patna had cleared the project as had the Centre, the piecemeal environmental clearances required for every phase of the highway project could get held up till the authority takes shape.

On its part, senior officials in the know have sought to allay apprehensions by saying that Centre would consult the states on formulation of rules and powers of the authority. The authority would be chaired by the PM and have chief ministers concerned as its members.

There has not been any consultation with states on the creation of the Ganga authority. The decision was triggered by a letter from Congress chief Sonia Gandhi expressing concern about dams upstream in Uttarakhand turning the river dry. Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopananda met the PM with the plea to save the holy river.

Sources said while the government could use the Environment Protection Act to claim powers for the Centre (read authority) to "clean the river", the PM's move could run into rough weather because regulating water flow, outside the specific concern of pollution, was a state subject.

On the contrary, if the Centre backed out from arming the authority with such powers for fear of encroaching on states' jurisdiction, it would end up delivering a toothless tiger and a talking shop.

Insiders feel the Centre could indulge in bluster. The government's earlier move to assess the "cumulative impact of dams in Uttarakhand on Ganga", albeit without halting ongoing projects, has heightened fears that the Centre could be looking to take an activist role on the sensitive inter-state rivers issue, something the UPA regime avoided during the bulk of its tenure.