Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday batted for inter-linking of rivers in the country, saying it can help address the issue of imbalance between areas having excess water and those facing scarcity of the resource.

Responding to the question by a student during the ‘smart India hackathon’, Modi said while 17 per cent of the world population is in India, the country has only four per cent of water.

“Water is limited for our population...there are areas which face floods. Then there are rivers which are dry. If there is inter-linking, the problem can be solved,” he said, adding river inter-linking is the vision of the government and will come true one day.

Earlier, addressing the over one lakh participants through video-conference, who had gathered at multiple locations, Modi said nobody is blessed with all the knowledge of the world. “This applies to governments too...the biggest mistake governments make is to think they alone can bring about change. What brings about change is a participatory governance,” he said.

He said it was essential to know the root of every problem and think out-of-the-box ways to solve them. He was of the view that innovation is not merely a word. “Innovation is a continuous process. Questioning is an important aspect of innovation,” he said.

The prime minister said  IPPP — innovate, patent, produce, and prosper — will drive innovation in coming days.

“We should innovate more, patent them, make their production easier and take it to the people. This is what brings prosperity,” he said. He said students should strive to come up with innovations which help in development of the nation. He said getting papers published in reputed journals is good, but most important thing was to use innovations for the betterment of people. The hackthon was organised to crowd-source solutions to governance-related problems.