Yogi Adityanath sanctions Rs 23.4 cr to save Jayaprakash Narayan’s native village

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has sanctioned Rs 23.4 crore for a riverbank protection project to keep Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan’s native village, Sitabdiara, in Ballia district from being subsumed by Ghaghara river.

The river changes its course every year and has destroyed the village bit by bit.

Narayan is said to have shifted his house every year in the village before Independence because of the changing course of the flood-prone river that flowed next to it. The village then fell in Bihar’s Chhapra but is now part of eastern UP’s Ballia district.

Following the CM’s intervention, which came after persistent demand from the villagers, the UP Irrigation and Water Resources Department will now build T-headed spurs, carry out slope pitching and launch apron works on priority, officials said. The residents had written a letter to the CM on February 10 seeking urgent intervention to save ‘Loknayak’ JP Narayan’s birthplace ahead of this year’s monsoon and possible flooding in June.

In October last year, on the occasion of Narayan’s birth anniversary, the villagers had sat on a day-long fast saying the village was in danger of being subsumed by the river which had changed its course by over three kilometres to enter the village.

Holding banners saying it was “an appeal to Yogi Adityanath as well as Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar”, the villagers said no compensation had ever been given for houses destroyed by the river in the past. The village falls right on the UP-Bihar border.