Karamchat Dam

Category Natural / Scenic beauty

One of the most preferred tourist sites in Rohtas district, located near Chenari, is around 35 kms from Sasaram. The view at the time of sunrise and sunset is indeed mesmerizing and scenic.

After the severe famine in 1966, the “Durgavati Reservoir Project” was envisaged to irrigate the unirrigated areas of the plains of Rohtas. The then Agriculture Minister AR Kidwai and Irrigation Minister K.L.Rao inspected the Durgavati Dam site and gave the green signal for its construction. Its foundation stone was laid on 10 June 1976 by the then Union Agriculture Minister Babu Jagjivan Ram. In the year 1977, the then Irrigation Minister Sachchidanand Singh constituted a high level committee and all its obstacles were removed. It was expected that by 1980 water would be given in the canals. But this plan kept getting eclipsed. In December 2011, the Supreme Court and the ministry finally got permission to work. Work on the scheme resumed in early 2012. By the year 2014, about Rs 1064 crore had been spent on this. The government also gave jobs to 184 people affected by this scheme. It was finally inaugurated on 15 October 2014 by the then Chief Minister Shri Jitan Ram Manjhi and the farmers of this area were fulfilled. Its patrolling capacity is 40131 hectares in Gross Command Area (GCA) and 33467 hectares in Agriculture Command Area (ACC). The height of the dam is 46.3 meters and the length is 1615.40 meters. Water Capacity The total storage capacity is 287.7 million cubic meters and the useful storage capacity is 257.5 million cubic meters. The submergence area at full reservoir level is 2337 hectares. The water source is the rain water of an area of 627 sq. km of Kaimur hills. From here canals have been taken out on both the east and west sides. The length of the right main canal is 34.08 km and the length of the right main canal is 22.6 km. With this, 11695 hectares of Chenari, Sivasagar and Sasaram blocks in Rohtas district and 5572 hectares of Rampur, Bhabua, Bhagwanpur, Kudra, Mohania and Durgavati blocks of Kaimur district can be irrigated. Apart from this, 16200 hectares of land is being irrigated by Kudra Weir canal.