Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was to inaugurate the Bateshwarasthan Ganga Pump Canal Project on Wednesday, but the programme had to be canceled, the wall of the dam broke just a day ahead of the inauguration.

A portion of the Rs 389.31-crore Bateshwarsthan Ganga Pump Canal Project collapsed on Tuesday night resulting in heavy losses to the nearby residential areas and bringing embarrassment to the Kumar led government. However, the Minister of Water Resources, Lallan Singh said, “The dam broke due to the release of water in full capacity. The incident has not caused any damage to the newly constructed part of the project.”

The incident happened when yesterday the pump was switched on for a trial session and the water from the Ganga river gushed with high speed and hit the wall of the dam, resulting in the damage. The water entered into the residential areas of Kahalgaon and areas in NTPC township.

The project began in 1996-97, though the planning commission had approved of the project back in 1977 and was finally completed to be inaugurated by the Bihar CM today, the change in the events was forced. According to the sources, the project was a joint initiative of the Bihar and Jharkhand states. With the help of this project around 18,620 and 4,038 hectares of land was to be irrigated in Bihar and Jharkhand respectively.

As per the reports, the project has the capacity to irrigate around 27,603 hectares of land, of which 22,816 hectares is in Bihar and 4,887 hectares in Jharkhand.

Following the accident, RJD has accused the ruling government under the leadership of Nitish Kumar to b responsible for this and has demanded probe into it. RJD spokesperson Shakti Yadav said that the wall of the dam collapsed due to use of poor quality of construction material. “The canal collapsed due to rampant corruption,” he said.