Farakka Barrage

Farakka Barrage is a barrage across the Ganges River, located between Murshidabad and Malda districts in the Indian state of West Bengal, roughly 16.5km from the border with Bangladesh near Chapai Nawabganj District. Farakka Barrage Township is located in Farakka (community development block) in Murshidabad district. Construction was started in 1961 and completed in 1975 at a cost of. Operations began on 21 April 1975. The barrage is about long. The Feeder Canal (Farakka) from the barrage to the Bhagirathi-Hooghly River is about 25mi long.PurposeThe barrage was constructed by Hindustan Construction Company. Out of 109 gates, 108 are over the river and the 109th one over the low-lying land in Malda, as a precaution. The Barrage serves water to the Farakka Super Thermal Power Station. There are also sixty small canals which can divert some water to other destinations for drinking purposes etc.The purpose of the barrage is to divert 40000cuft/s of water from the Ganges to the Hooghly River for flushing out the sediment deposition from the Kolkata harbour without the need of regular mechanical dredging. After commissioning the project, it was found that the diverted water flow from the Farakka barrage was not adequate to flush the sediment from the river satisfactorily. In addition, there are regular land/bank collapses in to the Ganga river due to the high level back waters of the Farakka barrage. Substantial high land is already converted into low level river bed causing displacement of huge population. The water diverted from the Farakka barrage is less than 10% of Ganga river water available at Farakka. The Indian government is contemplating to cement line/widen/deepen the Farakka feeder canal to increase the flow.