Thakur

At Taunton, overseas seamers Matt Henry and Migael Pretorius will share a lot of the work, while Essex's preparations were upset with the loss of India fast bowler Shardul Thakur barely two weeks before the start of the season - but they do still have Simon Harmer in their armoury.

Delhi made a terrible start to their reply as Shardul Thakur struck twice in the first over to remove Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abishek Porel cheaply, before Faf du Plessis and Axar Patel steadied the ship with knocks of 29 and 22.

Mr Thakur denied the allegation and said authorities "have all the data to continue with the project".

Baleshwar Thakur, who heads the National Water Development Agency, however, defended the project, saying authorities had conducted a thorough research and acquired all environmental clearances for the project.

Mr Thakur said that about 90% of the people had chosen to take the lump sum amount.