Hours after chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh Mulayam SinghYadav and Babulal Gaur signed the MoU in Delhi on August 25, Gaur flew to Rajasthan capital Jaipur where he and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje approved of the linking of Parvati, Kalisindh and Chambal rivers.

It aims at providing better irrigation facilities and drinking water for people of the two neighbouring states ruled by BJP that strongly favours the Rs 560,000 crore inter-linking of rivers scheme envisaging construction of 30 link projects.

The meeting between Raje and Gaur resolved several issues relating to sharing of water of common rivers between Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

The two sides decided to iron out differences on Madhya Pradesh's proposal for construction of seven dams upstream of Gandhi Sagar project, keeping in view water availability and drinking water needs of Banas river basin.

But optimism on the inter-linking scheme as a whole is tempered with caution, officials said.

The work for Ken-Betwa link will start following the Detailed Project Report (DPR) that will take two to three years at a cost of Rs 30 crore of which only Rs 6 crore has been earmarked in the current national budget.

Implementation of the link will take about eight years, they said.

Besides, there are concerns about the impact of Ken-Betwa link in terms of water sharing, land mass loss and rehabilitation and displacement of people around Jhansi.

The link will submerge several areas in both the states including a portion of the Panna National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

Officials, however, said the DPR would give concrete shape to the Ken-Betwa project taking into account in minute details environmental and rehabilitation issues, after which the two states have to agree and funding has to be arranged.

Concerns of Uttar Pradesh regarding environment and rehabilitation and riparian zone near Jhansi will be addressed while preparing the DPR, Indian Water Resources Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi said, adding that four more river linking projects were in the pipeline.

Mulayam Singh Yadav said the "historic" MoU with Madhya Pradesh could be a role model for other Indian states to resolve their water-sharing disputes.

Ken-Betwa link was chosen to be the first link project because these are shorter rivers and involve fewer states, officials said.

Thirty years ago, the then Congress government first thought of the river inter-linking project.

Put on the back burner for long, the BJP-led government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee revived the project proposal in 2003.