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The Ganges Barrage Project is a proposed project in Bangladesh to hold back rain water of the monsoon season because of the periodic drying up of the Ganges River in Bangladesh due to the Farakka Barrage.
Contents
Location
It would be located within Pangsha Upazila in Rajbari District, Bangladesh.
Cost of construction
The costs of construction is estimated to be approximately 4 billion USD (৳31,414 crore).
Water retention
It will be designed to retain about 2.90 trillion litres (2,350,000 acre·ft) of water. The full reservoir level is 12.5 m above the spillway sill level of the barrage with pond area of 625 square km.
Benefits
The south-western region of Bangladesh would benefit greatly from this project from generating about 100 megawatts (130,000 hp) of electricity and 250,000 metric tons (250,000 long tons; 280,000 short tons) of fish.
When this barrage project designed and constructed such that its back waters at its full reservoir level (FRL) extends into Indian territory and there is provision to draw water into the reservoir by gravity or pumping from the nearby Bramhaputra river, India would also become beneficiary of this project by pumping the transferred Bramhaputra river water via this reservoir into the Hoogly river during the insufficient flows in the Ganga river at Farakka barrage.
History
Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, a consulting firm from New York, proposed the then Pakistan government in 1963 to construct a counter barrage to hold water in the monsoon and supply it to the Gorai and other rivers in the lean period.
Alternate project
The Ganges Barrage Project would submerge nearly 625 km2 scarce fertile land in a densely populated area. However, an alternate project to serve this project goals can be jointly executed by Bangladesh and India with drastic reduction in land submergence and more utility. Bangladesh would get the needed continuous water supply through a gravity canal from Farakka barrage linking to the south western rivers of Bangladesh. Bangladesh would permit India to construct a gravity inter link canal with shipping facility between Farrakka and a new barrage at Goalpara in India to transfer Brahmapura river water into Ganga river.