Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Saryu Canal National Project at Balrampur district in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday. The project will facilitate irrigation to over 14 lakh hectares of land in nine districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh. The project will benefit about 29 lakh farmers in over 6,200 villages.
The Prime Minister began his address by remembering the martyrs of the chopper crash on 8th of December. He said, the loss of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat is a tremendous loss to every Indian. He said, General Rawat was working to make Indian armed forces self-reliant and strengthening border infrastructure. He further said, even after suffering the pain, the efforts to make the country’s Armed Forces self-reliant and campaign to strengthen coordination between the three armies, will keep moving forward. General Bipin Rawat, will see the country moving forward with new resolutions in the coming days.
The Prime Minister also remembered the brave son of Deoria district Group Captain Varun Singh who is the lone survivor in the unfortunate incident of helicopter crash. He said, the doctors are trying their best to save the Group Captain’s life.
The Prime Minister said, providing irrigation facilities to every field and making use of the drainage by the rivers is among the top priorities of the government. Mr. Modi said, the completion of the Saryu Canal National Project, which was pending for decades, shows the government’s resolve to work hard with noble intentions.
Mr Modi said that at the time of the commencement of this project 40 years back, its initial cost was less than 100 crore rupees, but now it has increased to around 10,000 crore. He said, the lackluster attitude of the previous governments’ was responsible for holding such projects for decades.
The Prime Minister said, when he assumed charge in 2014, he was shocked to see that 99 projects of irrigation in the country were kept pending for decades. He said, by dedicating the Saryu Canal National Project to the people, his government has accomplished in five years what the earlier government could not do in 50 years.
The Prime Minister said, that recently the Union Cabinet has approved the Ken-Betwa link project. He said, this project will help farmers of the water-deficit Bundelkhand region.
Mr. Modi said, his government is committed to the cause of small and marginal farmers.
Taking a jibe at the main Opposition party, the Prime Minister said, their priority is laying the foundation stone of the projects but ours is to complete the projects within time.
Mr. Modi said, the previous government in Uttar Pradesh worked hand in hand with the mafias, but the Yogi Adityanath Government has eliminated them.
The Prime Minister said, his government has ensured that despite the pandemic, the citizens should suffer least. He said, the PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna has been extended till Holi next year.
Earlier, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, eastern Uttar Pradesh has been neglected since independence, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi has helped this region to develop in all possible ways. He said, the Prime Minister had recently inaugurated development projects worth 10 thousand crore rupees including AIIMS and Fertilizer Plant in Gorakhpur. Yogi Adityanath said, a series of medical colleges are coming up in the state. He said, the government is committed to open at least one medical college in each district in the state.
The Chief Minister further said that the previous governments did not show any interest in completion of the Saryu Canal National Project despite being included under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana. He said, he is confident that this project will help farmers in the Poorvanchal and help in achieving the goal of doubling farmers’ income.
Under the Saryu Canal National Project, five rivers- Ghaghra, Saryu, Rapti, Banganga and Rohini have been interlinked to facilitate irrigation in the water-deficit regions of eastern Uttar Pradesh. The project was pending for over 40 years and the work on it expedited since Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed charge in 2014. The project is the largest among the 99 projects that are to be completed under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana in the country.
Our correspondent reports that the Saryu Canal National Project was planned in 1972 and the work on it started in 1978, but due to the lack of budgetary support and inter-departmental coordination, the project could not make much progress. The project was revived when Prime Minister Narendra Modi included the Saryu Canal National Project in the 99 projects that are to be completed on priority basis under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana. After Yogi Adityanath Government assumed charge in 2017, the project got a major boost. More than half of the work on the project has been completed in the last four years.
Initially, the project was to start on a small scale in 1978 for irrigation in two districts at a cost of over 78 crore rupees, but now it has been extended to nine districts and the overall cost on the project has increased to over nine thousand 800 crore rupees.
The project is hailed as the biggest river linking project in Uttar Pradesh. Two barrages have been built on river Saryu and Rapti to transport water to the fields. The project starts from the Saryu Barrage at Bahraich. The main canal is 318-kilometre long and 922 sub-canals with a length of over 6,600 kilometres have been linked to it. The nine districts to get benefitted by the project are- Bahraich, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur and Maharajganj.
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