Though Haridwar city is facing scanty rainfall this monsoon season cloud burst and heavy rain lashing the hills of the State has led to the closure of Ganga Canal on early Tuesday morning. The irrigation department officials informed that later in the day, the water flow was resumed in the canal.
It is learnt that the Ganga Canal was closed during the small hours of Tuesday because of heavy silt deposition in the riverbed areas. Speaking to The Pioneer, SDO Upper Ganga Canal Vikrant Kumar Saini said, “We have closed the Ganga Canal at around 4 in the morning following the heavy deposition of silt and rising of the water level. However, around noon, the volume of the silt started coming down. By the afternoon the volume came down further and we decided to resume the flow of the canal.”
Notably, the Ganga Canal was conceived and built by an eminent British engineer Sir Pourbly Cautley in 1842. The canal- spread over around 570 km-stretches from Haridwar to Kanpur.