Local villagers look at the Kharkai bridge on Thursday, a day after water was flowing over it. Picture by Srinivas

Ranchi, June 19: The floods in Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan may have ebbed. And the crucial bridge linking Adityapur to the town of Jamshedpur may have resurfaced. But one painful truth will stay with the people — the flash floods of yesterday could have been easily avoided.

For, the ambitious Subernarekha Multipurpose Project (SMP) — primarily aimed to prevent floods in Jharkhand, Orissa and Bengal with proposed dams over the Kharkai and Subernarekha — is far from complete even after three decades since inception.

The project was also supposed to provide foolproof irrigation facilities for over 240,000 hectares in the states and water for industrial use.

“Ichha dam alone — supposed to be built over the Kharkai in Rajnagar block of West Singhbhum — was capable of holding 823 million cubic metre of water in its submergence areas. But the project was stopped abruptly midway during the early ’90s because of problems in forest department clearance and land acquisition,” said Muni Lal Prasad, chief engineer of Ichha-Galudih project.

But the Orissa government constructed dams over the Kharkai at Rairangpur and Beyangbil in Mayurbhanj district, releasing or storing water whenever necessary.

Both the dams were built under the SMP and Bihar and Orissa governments shared the cost.

During the rainfall in the past couple of days, discharge of the Subernarekha near Mango — at the confluence of the Kharkai and Sanjay river — was about 8,000 cumec (cubic metre per second) with 6,000 cumec in the Kharkai alone.

“Out of 6,000 cumec, a good amount of water could well be held if the proposed Ichha dam was complete,” Muni Lal said.

He added that 60,000 cusec (cubic foot per second) of water was released from the Subernarekha in the last two days leading to sudden waterlogging in Jamshedpur.

It was from Ichha dam that the 56km right main canal leading to Galudih barrage in Ghatshila was to terminate. The canal would touch Rajnagar-Potka-Ghatshila blocks of Singhbhum.

Through the canal and its tributaries, thousands of acres were supposed to be irrigated. “Work on the canal is only 30 per cent over, as it couldn’t be dug without a dam,” said a project engineer.

The dam over the Subernarekha in Chandil is also of no use as the 127km left bank canal could not be constructed.

“The work for the canal was just 16km over when objections were raised by the forest department as it was to pass through the Dalma wildlife sanctuary affecting the elephant corridor,” said Muni Lal.

Former SMP administrator Bijay Kumar Tripathi tried to tide over the forests department clearance and land acquisition problems before he was unceremoniously removed from the post in January 2007 following an alleged spat with water resources minister Kamlesh Kumar Singh.

The then water resources secretary, Mahaveer Prasad, took charge but he could do little before his retirement in July 2007.

“As far as the Chandil project is concerned, the dam is almost complete. But we are unable to complete the project for want of forests department clearance in Dalma,” said Ranjit Kumar Singh, the chief engineer of Chandil complex.