Irrigation is one of the crucial inputs for achieving sustained agricultural growth and reducing inequality and poverty in India. After independence significant progress has been made in the provision of irrigation facilities including adoption of new agricultural technologies which is more water-intensive. Indian agriculture largely depends upon Monsoon which is always uncertain in nature. Moreover regional variations in rainfall leads to situations where some pan of Country do not have enough rainfall for raising even a single crop and on the other hand in other parts of country, excess rabidl creates havoc due to floods.

To tackle the water crisis threatening the future, proper management of river water is the need of the hour The interlinking of rivers (ILR) programme is a major endeavour to create additional storage facilities and transfer water from water-surplus regions to drought-prone areas through inter-basin transfer.

The core objective of the paper is to study an implemented scheme of interlinking of rivers in India and at the backdrop of this, an attempt to study Challenges and prospects in interlinking of rivers in India from the point of view of society at large as well as its environmental impact.