PM will inaugurate the Saryu Nahar National Project.

Saryu Nahar National Project

• The Project involves the interlinking of five rivers – Ghaghara, Saryu, Rapti, Banganga and Rohini to ensure optimum usage of water resources of the region.
• It will benefit nine districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh namely – Bahraich, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur and Maharajganj.
• The sub canals with a length of 6,600km have been linked to the 318km main canal.
• The work on the project started in 1978 but due to lack of continuity, it got delayed and was not completed even after nearly four decades.

Benefits offered

• The project will provide assured water for irrigation of over 14 lakh hectares of land and benefit about 29 lakh farmers of over 6200 villages.
• 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 maximize the agri-potential of the region.

Back2Basics: Sarayu River

• The Sarayu is a river that originates at a ridge south of Nanda Kot mountain in Bageshwar district in Uttarakhand.
• It flows through Kapkot, Bageshwar, and Seraghat towns before discharging into the Sharda River at Pancheshwar at the India—Nepal border.
• Lower Ghaghara is also popularly known as Sarayu in India.
• Especially while it flows through the city of Ayodhya, the birthplace of legendary Rama.

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