Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Saryu Canal National Project at Balrampur district in Uttar Pradesh on December 11.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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