Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur on Saturday (11 December) to inaugurate the Saryu Nahar National Project.
The Saryu Nahar National Project has been built with a total cost of more than Rs 9,800 crore, out of which more than Rs 4,600 crore was provisioned in the last four years.
The work on the project started in 1978 but due to lack of continuity of budgetary support, interdepartmental coordination and adequate monitoring, it got delayed and was not completed even after nearly four decades.
In 2016, the project was brought under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana with the target to complete it in a time bound manner.
“In this endeavour, innovative solutions were found for new land acquisition to construct new canals and fill the critical gaps in the project, and also for resolving the pending litigation related to the previous land acquisitions,” the PMO said in a statement on Friday (10 December).
The renewed focus on the project has resulted in the project being completed in only about four years, the PMO added.
The project also involves interlinking of five rivers – Ghaghara, Saryu, Rapti, Banganga and Rohini to ensure optimum usage of water resources of the region.
The Saryu Nahar project will provide assured water for irrigation of over 14 lakh hectares of land and benefit about 29 lakh farmers of over 6,200 villages.
It will benefit nine districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh namely – Bahraich, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur and Maharajganj, the PMO said.
The PMO added that the farmers of the region, who were the worst sufferers of the inordinate delay in the project, will now immensely benefit from the upgraded irrigation potential. They will now be able to grow crops on a larger scale and maximise the agri-potential of the region, it said.