Loading…
Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary inaugurated the 68.80 km Belwa-Minapur Link Channel (Belwadhar) in Sheohar on 19 July 2026, built at a cost of about Rs 130.88 crore.
It is Bihar's first completed river-interlinking project, part of the Bagmati-Burhi Gandak River Interlinking Project, diverting up to 50,000 cusecs of surplus Bagmati floodwater into the higher-capacity Burhi Gandak.
The channel runs from Belwa Ghat (Pipra block, Sheohar) to Minapur (Muzaffarpur), adding about 1,35,000 hectares of irrigation capacity across four North Bihar districts — Sheohar, Muzaffarpur, East Champaran and Samastipur.
It is expected to serve as a model for future interlinking projects such as the Kosi-Mechi Link.
The channel diverts surplus floodwater from the flood-prone Bagmati River into the higher-capacity Burhi Gandak River, reducing embankment-breach risk while also expanding irrigation and recharging groundwater — functioning as the foundational phase of the wider Bagmati Flood Management Project.
Simple Analogy: Like an overflow drain that redirects excess water from a smaller, flood-prone pipe into a larger one that can safely carry more.
GS Paper I (Geography - River systems) & GS Paper III (Disaster/Water Management)
Cubic feet per second — a unit measuring water flow rate, commonly used for river/canal discharge