Patna, Dec. 22: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar today ordered upgrade of 1.407km Indrapuri barrage on the Sone river at Dehri-on-Sone in Rohtas district, a region which has resisted his political sway so far.

Nitish, who was visiting the district as part of the seventh leg of his Seva Yatra, inspected the barrage and instructed principal secretary, water resources, Afzal Amanullah and other officials accompanying him to start de-silting process on the riverbed at the earliest possible.

The chief minister issued the directive responding to the repeated plea for the same from the farmers in central Bihar’s Rohtas district — also referred to as the state’s “rice bowl”.

“Send the proposal for the de-silting of the riverbed underneath the barrage so that it can preserve more water,” Nitish told the officials, much to the satisfaction of the farmers in the region.

Indrapuri barrage controls the decades old Sone canal system that was inaugurated by the then prime minister, Guljarilal Nanda, in 1965. It is the Sone canal system irrigating vast tracts of lands in Rohtas, Kaimur, Bhojpur, Buxar, parts of Arwal, Aurangabad and Patna districts that has made the region earn its “rice bowl” sobriquet.

The 69-gate barrage replenishes the canals spread in 2,450km around it.

Nitish directed the engineers and officials concerned to computerise the barrage’s operation. The NDA government has already computerised the Birpur barrage on the Kosi river on the Bihar-Nepal border.

The farmers in the Rohtas region have consistently been clamouring for the modernisation of the Sone canal system. In fact, exploiting the overwhelming sentiment of the farmers, Nitish’s political opponents have succeeded in checking the spread of chief minister’s clout in Rohtas.

Jyoti Rashmi, an Independent candidate, supported by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar from behind the scene, had won the Dehri-on-Sone Assembly seat in 2010 elections defeating the NDA nominee. Meira had, earlier, won Sasaram seat, also the headquarters of the Rohtas district, in 2009 elections.

Nitish today looked like making a strong attempt to leave his stamp on the region that has consistently defied him ever since he came to power in 2005. Braving the biting cold, Nitish walked one-and-a-half km on foot to reach the barrage.

In the course of his foot journey, he mingled with the people, shared pleasantries with them but kept his conversation totally free from the political references. On Seva Yatra, Nitish avoids sounding political and, usually, confines himself to inspecting the infrastructural projects and government’s schemes.

But then the manner in which he moved out through the dusty lanes and by-lanes in the run-up to the barrage had, apparently, political messages.

A battery of local representatives, including youth affairs and culture minister Sukhada Pandey, MLAs, Ramdhani Singh, Jaikumar Singh and Jawahar Prasad greeted the chief minister when the latter landed at the helipad, 1.5km away from the barrage.