DALTONGANJ: Chief minister Raghubar Das on Saturday said his government has increased Jharkhand’s irrigation capacity by more than 100% since it took over four years ago and hoped that the resumption of the North Koel Irrigation Project (Mandal dam), which was stalled for decades, will end agrarian crisis in this part of the state and stop large scale migration of farmers as they will be able to take up multiple crops in a single year.“Before our government in 2014, only 91,323 hectares of land was under irrigation. In last four years, we have brought over two lakh hectare of land under irrigation. We grew by over 100%,” Das said, while speaking before PM Narendra Modi’s address.The big-ticket ceremony held at Chihanki airstrip ground witnessed over 50,000 people, many of whom came in trucks from different districts, which was conducted without any glitches, courtesy a synchronized crowd management by district administration. The turn had even impressed Modi so much that he thanked the crowd—both within the tent and several standing outside it to hear him.“Our former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri once said jai jawan, jai kisan. In Congress rule, both kisaan and jawan struggled. Now that is changing under the leadership of PM Modi,” Das said.Das added that from April, state government will also start giving six hour uninterrupted power through a separate feeder to farmers. Warning people, he reiterated that whenever anyone tries to misguide, janta (public) should simply question about Jharkhand before 2014 and now in terms of all rounds of works that were done under the current regime.“Doubling farmers income, homes to all and overall development is our only agenda. We have been taking numerous measures to improve farm situation and results prove that our farm gross domestic product (GDP) has now grown from -4% before 2014 to over 14.5 % today,” he said, iterating how the opposition parties are targeting Modi (PM) because they know, he is a threat to them.“It is because the PM talks of women, poor, farmers, development and others which worries the opposition worry. So they are teaming up against one honest person,” Das said.Notably, the Mandal dam project was initiated in 1972 during undivided Bihar and in 1984-85 acquired 2200 hectare of land covering 15 villages. However, in 1993, forest department of Bihar stopped the project over environmental clearance. Since then the project remained grounded.It was only in August 2017, the Union cabinet approved proposal to complete remaining work of the project and also by chipping in some funds. In February 2018, the Centre granted this project Stage-I clearance (in principle go ahead with certain conditions). There were 38 conditions in Stage-I clearance such as rehabilitation, forest diversion, compensatory afforestation etc.Currently, the total cost of the project is pegged around Rs 2,391.36 crore. Expenditure amounting to Rs 769.09 crore had already been incurred till date. The project will help irrigate 1.11,521 hectares of land of which 19,604 will be in Jharkhand and rest in Bihar.Mukesh Kumar, chief engineer of district water resource department taking care of this project, told TOI on Friday that contrary to earlier, out of 15 villages, only eight will get submerged now as the height of the dam has been reduced from 367.28 meters to 341 meters.Other projects whose foundation stones were also laid by PM included Sone Canal Pipeline irrigation project (Rs 1169.28 crore), Bater reserviour project in Hariharganj block of Palamu (Rs 17.47 crore), Bai Banki project in Nagaruntari block of Garhwa (Rs 24.80 crore), Anjanwa jalashay yojana in Chatra (Rs 67.53 cr) and Bhramani irrigation project in West Singhbhum (Rs 11.62 crore).

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