Overview
- The state announced the ₹1,200 crore allocation on Wednesday, with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari saying the Centre will cover half the cost and officials were ordered to begin work after Durga Puja.
- Adhikari set an ambitious target of substantial completion by June 2027 but some officials warned the full plan could realistically stretch into 2028 because of scale and land needs.
- Planned engineering work includes dredging riverbeds, raising and strengthening embankments, building pump houses and sluice gates to channel excess water into the Rupnarayan River and improve drainage.
- Immediate administrative moves include seeking disaster-management funds for land acquisition, assigning local MLAs to fast-track implementation, and rolling out short-term relief such as one-time grants for kutcha-house families and crop-insurance enrolment for affected farmers.
- The scheme dates to the 1970s and was first costed at about ₹50 crore; decades of delay expanded its scope to an estimated ₹1,500 crore, so the new central-state funding commitment could be decisive but faces major logistical and land-acquisition hurdles that will determine its impact on flood-prone communities.