New Delhi: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would soon make an important announcement about an ambitious project concerning linking of rivers to tackle the recurring flood and drought situation in the country.

This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani on November 1 while addressing the national executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Mahila Morcha, the women's wing of the party.

Noting that the issue of linking major rivers was first advocated by K L Rao, who was Irrigation and Power Minister over three decades back, Advani said that many studies have been done since 1980 on bringing water from surplus basins to deficit ones.

"We have now fine-tuned the whole thing and soon the Prime Minister would make an important announcement on the issue," he said.

The announcement came a day after the Supreme Court asked the government to immediately constitute a task force to link all major rivers in the country by 2012.

Advani preceded his announcement by saying that while there have been umpteen achievements of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, the one that would be long remembered would be spreading of the road network through schemes like Golden Quadrilateral and Gramin Sadak Yojana.

He regretted that the Mahila Morcha and the Yuva Morcha have not been able to make much progress so far and wanted the women's wing to set up self-help groups of women on the lines initiated by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) with good effect.

PTI