Uttar Pradesh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Uttar Pradesh’s Balrampur district on Saturday and inaugurate the Saryu Nahar National Project which will provide assured water for irrigation of over 14 lakh hectares of land and benefit about 29 lakh farmers of more than 6,200 villages, his office said. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said the project has been built at a total cost of over Rs 9,800 crore, out of which more than Rs 4,600 crore was provisioned in the last 4 years.
Modi said the work on the project had begun in 1978 but was never completed but due to lack of continuity of budgetary support, interdepartmental coordination and adequate monitoring before his government took measures to complete it. The project involves the interlinking of 5 rivers Ghaghara, Saryu, Rapti, Banganga and Rohini to ensure optimum usage of water resources of the region. The prime minister’s vision for farmer welfare and empowerment and his commitment to prioritising long-pending projects of national importance brought much-needed focus on the project.
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 project will benefit 9 districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, namely Bahraich, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur and Maharajganj. Reportedly, 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.