With the annual closure of Ganga being enforced from Tuesday midnight, the Ganga canal would be closed for 20 days till Diwali. However, 1,000 cusecs of water would be maintained at Har Ki Pauri, an official said here on Tuesday. The Ganga is closed annually around this time for the cleaning exercise.
Known as the life-line of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the Ganga canal was built by a British engineer Col Kotley in 1842. The canal feeds areas of Delhi and Noida. The canal stretches along 570 km from Haridwar to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. The canal took 12 years to come up and around `1.5 crore was spent.
Speaking to The Pioneer, SDO Upper Ganga Canal Sushil Yadav said, “A minimum water level would be maintained at Har Ki Pauri and other bathing ghats keeping the religious sentiments of people. However, the remaining part of the canal would have zero water level till Diwali when the flow of the canal would be restored to its fullness.” He said the flow of the canal had been stopped in consultation with the Ganga Mahasabha.
Whenever the Ganga canal is closed for cleaning, the water supply in some areas of Ghaziabad and Muradnagar is affected. “To solve this problem, we have stored water at three places. The waters would be released from time to time as the need warrants,” said Yadav.