Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has sanctioned a huge sum of money for a riverbank protection project to keep Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan’s native village, Sitabdiara, in Ballia district from being submerged by Ghaghara river. The river is known for changing its course every year and has destroyed the village bit by bit.
Following the CM’s intervention, which came after persistent demand from the villagers, the UP Irrigation and Water Resources Department will now build T-headed spurs, carry out slope pitching and launch apron works on priority, officials said. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has sanctioned around 23.4 crores for this project.
The residents had written a letter to the CM on February 10 seeking urgent intervention to save ‘Loknayak’ JP Narayan’s birthplace before the monsoon hits the year and possible flooding in June.
Narayan is believed to have shifted his house every year in the village before Independence because of the changing direction of the flood-prone river that flowed next to it. The village then fell in Bihar’s Chhapra but is now part of eastern UP’s Ballia district.
Around October last year, on the occasion of Narayan’s birth anniversary, the villagers had sat on a day-long fast saying the village was in danger of being subsumed by the river which had changed its course by over three kilometres to enter the village area.
Holding banners saying it was “an appeal to Yogi Adityanath as well as Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar”, the villagers said no compensation had ever been given for houses destroyed by the river in the past. The village falls right on the UP-Bihar border.
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