21/07/2014

 

Bihar urges MP, UP to release Sone water

 


Patna,(BiharTimes): Bihar government on Friday urged the Madhya Pradesh and UP governments to release its quota of water from Bansagar and Rihand dams situated in these two states respectively, as farmland under Sone command area in this lower raparian state have dried up due to paucity of rain.

Informing the Bihar Assembly on Friday water resources department minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said the principal secretary, WRD, on Friday had telephonic talks with his counterparts in the two states demanding release of the state’s quota of water.

The minister said he would soon talk to the WRD ministers of MP and UP and added that engineer-in-chief, WRD, had visited the Sone command areas recently and found Bihar was getting only 6,000 to 7,000 cft of water from Rihand, against its share of 14 lakh cft.

He charged the MP government with not cooperating with Bihar and not releasing its share of water from the reservoirs.

On the other hand the UP and MP governments were claiming there was insufficient rain in the catchment areas of Sone in their states, hence they were not discharging enough water from the dams to Bihar.

Earlier, during the Zero Hour the BJP and RJD MLAs raised the issue of water scarcity in Sone Canal region in Bhojpur, Buxar, Rohtas, Kaimur, Arwal, Gaya and Aurangabad districts. They said paddy seedlings had dried up but farmers were not getting electricity for their motor pumps.

It needs to be recalled that Bansagar agreement was signed between MP, Bihar and UP in 1973, under which Bihar is expected to receive 9,860 million cubic metres of water for irrigating 9.42 lakh hectares of land through Sone canal system.

The Rihand water sharing agreement between UP and Bihar, which was signed in 1973, also provides for sharing of water between the two states.


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