The Union Cabinet in August this year had cleared the project and had sanctioned a sum of Rs 1622.22 crore
The North Koel Reservoir project, which had been stalled for decades since 1972, and which received cabinet nod in August this year is threatened once more as it lands in a political slugfest. While the project had found mention in PM Modi's Gaya speech, former Bihar BJP minister and ex-MLA from Aurangabad Ramadhar Singh is up in arms against it.
The Union Cabinet in August this year had cleared the project and had sanctioned a sum of Rs 1622.22 crore. The project stands to benefit farmers in the most backward and drought-prone areas – Bihar's ill- irrigated Gaya and Aurangabad districts and the tribal belt of Jharkhand's Palamu and Garhwa districts – and was thus called by Union minister Uma Bharti as a potent weapon to fight naxalism.
Notwithstanding the proposed benefits, the cabinet nod, and the provision in the cabinet decision that Niti Aayog would be the watchdog for the project, the BJP leader has shot a letter to the Prime Minister, calling for an inquiry into the project details and the claimed benefits. Singh has dubbed the entire project as "faulty" and a conspiracy in which the engineers misled the Central government.
In his letter to the PM, Singh has also hurled accusations against sitting Aurangabad MP from BJP Sushil Singh. While Sushil Singh counts the resumption of work on the project among his biggest achievements as public representative, Ramadhar Singh has accused the former of colluding with engineers and misrepresenting facts in front of the Centre.
While Sushil Singh refused to comment, Ramadhar Singh could not be reached on his cellphone.
"It is to inform you with reference to your announcement at the Gaya meeting...the proposal sent to you from the Bihar as well as Jharkhand governments is faulty. The money would be spent, but of the 120 km stretch of the proposed canal, only those up to 70 kilometers would be benefited. A technical agency of the Central government in association with agencies from Bihar and Jharkhand must review the project and make amends," he wrote.
"An investigation must be carried out against such engineers who have sent half baked information to the PMO as well as against Sushil Singh, MP from Aurangabad, who has changed parties many times and who has, in association with unscruplous engineers, hidden complete facts from the Union government with the intention to bring bad name to the government," Ramadhar Singh said in the letter.
"Engineers must be terminated from service after inquiry. And if the inquiry finds my facts wrong, strict action must be taken against me too," Ramadhar Singh said in the letter.
The North Koel river is a tributary of the Son river and ultimately joins Ganga. The construction of dam started in 1972 and was later stopped by the Bihar government's forest department in 1993.
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