Munde, Mahajan hail Irai work

Chandrapur: Water conservation minister Pankaja Munde and water resources minister Girish Mahajan, along with guardian minister of Chandrapur, Sudhir Mungantiwar inspected the ambitious Irai river rejuvenation project taken up by district administration here on Wednesday and assured requisite funds for completion of the project. Complying with the suggestion of water conservation expert and Magsaysay awardee Rajendra Singh, Mungantiwar had pushed the Irai rejuvenation project and secured necessary grants.The 30km long stretch of river from Irai dam to its confluence with Wardha river is filled with silt deposited due to dumping by WCL, and inflow of fly ash from Chandrapur Super Thermal Power station. The river bed had become so shallow that, Irai had changed its original course and started flowing very close to the city, wrecking havoc during monsoons with deluge.
Silt is being excavated from the river bed to deepen the river, while high wall is being built on the city side of the river bank. District collector Asutosh Salil informed the ministers that administration will remove 631 TCM silt from five km long stretch between Padoli bridge to Chaurala bridge in Irai river.
He added that river stretch between Padoli and Datala bridges will be beautified and nine chain-weirs in river bed ahead of Irai dam too are proposed under the project. The project is estimated to incur cost of around 84 crores. Administration has decided to provide the fertile silt excavated from the river bed free of cost to the farmers, Salil said.