The dream of the denizens of Ichak and Sadar blocks of Hazaribagh of getting irrigation water and increasing underground water table is not going to be realised as the monitoring committee has refused to approve the much-awaited dam project on Sewane river after inspecting the area.
Some years ago the Water Resource Ministry of Jharkhand had prepared a plan to build a dam on Sewane river of Hazaribagh district to provide irrigation and drinking water to the residents of both Hazaribagh town and the adjoining Sadar and Ichak blocks. For the proposed dam land between Bonga and Pabra villages was chosen in 2012-13.
The district administration had selected this site because most of the land in this area is GM land and a little area was to be acquired from the raiyyats. The district administration sent the detailed report to the Ministry after massive survey of the area and signs of pillars are still there showing the dam site.
The Ministry gave the responsibility of preparing detailed project report to RV Associate Architect Engineers and Consultants. State government paid Rs 89 lakhs to the company which prepared DPR of this project. As per the DPR submitted by the company it was a Rs 700 crore project.
After getting the DPR Ministry told a monitoring committee to inspect the site but the report of monitoring committee has disapproved this project because of the nature of the area. Actually in this area many legal and illegal stone chips mines are running in full swing since last few years. Due to unscientific mining of stone chips dangerous pits have been formed in the entire area.
The monitoring team has mentioned it in its report and on this basis it has reported to not approve the project. According to experts these pits will make this proposed dam dangerous. The team has given a detailed account of the changed nature of the land on which the dam was proposed and has said that it will neither be beneficial nor be correct of making dam here at this site.
On one hand the peoples’ representatives of Hazaribagh are talking about the project of bringing water from Konar Dam which is 50 km away from Hazaribagh town to provide drinking water to the town and on another hand no one seems to be worried on cancellation of an important project for Hazaribagh.