Gandaki River

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Context: A 15-year-old bridge over the Gandaki River collapsed in Bihar's Saran district on 4 July, A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Bihar government to undertake a structural audit.

Details

About the River

Origin

• The river Gandak originates from the north of Dhaulagisi in Tibet near Nepal border.
• It is formed by the union of the Kali and Trisuli rivers, which rise in the Great Himalayan Range in Nepal.
• The river Gandak, is also known as the Gandaki and Narayani River in Nepal, a left bank tributary of the Ganges in India.
• The entry point of the river at the Indo–Nepal border is also the confluence called Triveni with rivers Pachnad and Sonha descending from Nepal.

Length

• The river stretches over a length of 630 kilometers, with 445 kilometers running through India and 185 kilometers in Nepal.

Drainage Basin

• Total drainage basin area of 29,705 square kilometers.
• The river flows through the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and joins the Ganges near Patna just downstream of Hajipur.
• The basin also contains three mountains over 8,000 m (26,000 ft), namely Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Annapurna Massif. Dhaulagiri is the highest point of the Gandaki basin.

Major  tributaries

• The major tributaries of the Gandak River include the Mayangadi, Bari, Trisuli, Panchand, Sarhad, Budhi Gandak.
• There are no tributaries in the Gandak River in Indian Part, only diversions.

National Parks

• On bank of Gandak River there is two national parks one is in Nepal-Chitwan national Park and second is in India-Bihar Valmikinagar National Park.
• These both parks are famous for Rhinoceros and Tiger.

National Waterway

• River Gandak (Narayani River) was declared as National Waterway (NW)-37 from Bhaisalotan Barrage to Gandak and Ganga river confluence at Hajipur along with 111 NWs in the country vide National Waterways Act, 2016.

Mythological Significance

• The river bed in Nepal side is also full of the shaligrama, (one type of stone which means Vishnu in hindumythology).
• The Gandaki River is mentioned in the ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharata.
• Ammonite fossils collected from the bed of the Gandaki River at a place close to Saligrama or Muktinath ("place of salvation") in the Mustang district of Nepal are known as shaligrams or shilas and are considered aniconic representations of Vishnu.

Sources:

Livemint