Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday made it clear that he is not going to turn a Nelson's eye to the Ganga's woes in Bihar, no matter what his ally BJP is planning for the river.

He said that cleanliness cannot be ensured without continuous flow of the river and asserted that the problems will be taken up with the Centre at the first available opportunity.

"We've always raised the issues connected to the Ganga and will raise them with Union minister for road transport, highway and shipping Nitin Gadkari whenever we get an opportunity. I'll personally meet him for this," Nitish said.

He was replying to journalists who asked for his stand on the national waterways, the first of which is 1,620km long and being developed between Haldia in Bengal and Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. He was speaking after his Lok Samvad at 1 Aney Marg.

But Nitish's entreaties to see cleanliness and incessant flow of the Ganga as interlinked and interdependent, consider siltation of the river because of Farakka barrage and address concerns about National Waterway-I went unheeded at a programme at Mokama on Saturday where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nitin Gadkari were present.

Nitish said waterways were not a new thing and had been used by people for thousands of years. He said he wasn't against them, but they could be successful only "if the river flow is good and steps are taken to resolve the siltation problem".

"The situation today is such that the flow of river is we-ak and less water is coming from upstream," Nitish said. "Obstruction is present downstream (read Farakka barrage). Just taking out silt will not solve the problem. Arrangements should be such that silt should go out with the flow."

Nitish asserted that the waterways project will not be successful till the flow of Ganga is increased and siltation is managed. Else silt will fill up the work done for the purpose, he said.

He blamed "unnatural reasons" for the present condition of the river.