SUKAPAIKA RIVER

Description

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Context: Odisha Government has started working on Sukapaika River revival plan following a recent direction from the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

Details:

This is probably the first serious attempt being made to restore a river to its original shape in Odisha.
The problem has started in 1952, when the state government blocked the starting point of the Sukapaika with an embankment to save the villages around it from floods.
Subsequently, in 1957, two major projects — Hirakud Dam in Sambalpur district and Naraj barrage at Cuttack — were built upstream on the Mahanadi, ostensibly to control floods in it.
The river dried up due to the development of the Taladanda Canal System, a major canal of the State.
Sukapaika is one of the several distributaries of the mighty Mahanadi river in Odisha.
It branches away from the Mahanadi at Ayatpur village in Cuttack district and flows for about 40 kilometres (km) before rejoining its parent river at Tarapur in the same district.
In the process, it drains a large landmass comprising over 425 villages under 26 gram panchayats in three blocks — Cuttack Sadar, Nischintakoili and Raghunathpur.