Naveen Patnaik seeks Hemant Soren’s cooperation for early completion of Ichha dam
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik has sought cooperation of his Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren for early completion of Ichha dam over river Kharkhai in Jharkhand for benefit of farmers of both the states.
In a recent letter, the chief minister also urged Soren, for storage of water up to full reservoir level in Chandil dam over in the monsoon season for mitigation of flood in Odisha.
“I would like to bring to your kind notice that Subarnarekha irrigation project of Odisha will be able to utilize its full irrigation potential only after completion of the Ichha dam by the government of Jharkhand. I am happy to know that Jharkhand has taken up Ichha dam construction work recently,” said Naveen in his letter.
Naveen said his government will extend all cooperation for Ichha dam construction and reimburse Odisha’s share cost of dam in time. Odisha will bear 26.46 per cent of the construction cost of the Ichha dam.
Against the estimated share cost of Odisha of Rs 1208 crore (2016 price level), the state government has so far paid Rs 1026.91 crore to the Jharkhand government, said Naveen adding as many as 36 villages of Odisha are affected under Ichha dam reservoir submergence area at full reservoir level of 225 metre.
“Accordingly, land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement work in Odisha portion have been taken up. As of now, 5196 acres of land (98 per cent) out of 5283 acres has already been acquired. Rehabilitation assistance has been paid to 1268 project affected persons out of total identified 1369 affected persons, which is about 93 per cent,” said Naveen.
Stating that the Chandil dam across river Subarnarekha has been completed since long, Naveen said water has been stored up to 181.50 of the reservoir level during the monsoon against the full reservoir level of 192 metre due to rehabilitation and resettlement issues. Naveen said as full storage capacity has not been utilized in the dam during the monsoon season, Odisha is facing flood havoc more often.
The Subarnarekha Multipurpose project was taken up for utilization of water resources of Subarnarekha-Kharkhai basin as per the tripartite agreement made in 1978 among erstwhile Bihar (now Jharkhand), Odisha and West Bengal, said official sources.