Bansagar or Ban Sagar Dam is a multipurpose river Valley Project on Sone River situated in the Ganges Basin in Madhya Pradesh, India with both irrigation and 435 MW of hydroelectric power generation. The Bansagar Dam across the Sone River was constructed near the Deolond village in the Shahdol district. It is surrounded by Satna, Katni, and Rewa districts. The project was called "Bansagar" after Bana Bhatt, the renowned Sanskrit scholar of the 7th century, who is believed to have hailed from this region in India. Bansagar Dam is located at Latitude 24-11-30 N and Longitude 81-17-15 E. The project was initially called the "Dimba Project" in 1956 by the Central Water Commission, New Delhi to be constructed on the Sone River at the confluence of the Sone and Banas Rivers near Shikarganj town 30 km down river from the present site. Later it was shifted to the present site at Deolond. There was an agreement in 1973 between the State Governments of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for the construction of the dam, in which the states shared the expenditure in the ratio of 2:1:1. The 4 million-acre-feet of water is also shared by the states in the same ratio. The construction work was started in 1978 at original approved cost of Rs. 91.31 crores. The final estimated cost in 1998 was Rs. 1054.96 crores.
Bansagar Dam and reservoir data
Catchment area : 18648 km²
Dam height : 67 meter
Dam length : 1020 meter,
Dam type : Masonry/Earthen
Spillway capacity : 47,742 m³/s
Live storage : 5.41 km³
Submergence area : 587.54 km²
Population affected : 142,000
Villages submerged : 336
Year of start : 1978
Year of completion : 2006
beneficiary : farmers
Project benefits
Irrigation
The water sharing from Bansagar Dam is as under:
Madhya Pradesh :
Uttar Pradesh :
Bihar :
Bansagar will irrigate an area of 2,490 km² in Madhya Pradesh, 1,500 km²; in Uttar Pradesh and 940 km² in Bihar.
Power generation
It also provides power generation of 425 MW in Madhya Pradesh.
Bansagar Canal Project
The Bansagar Canal Project started in 1978 was handed over to the nation by PM Narendra Modi on 15 July 2018. Following Canal System, which will utilize water from the Bansagar Reservoir, are in progress as under:
The land submerged by Bansagar dam at Full Reservoir Level is 587.54 km², out of which 40.73 km² is forest land, 175.90 km² revenue land 1.31 km² public land and 369.59 km² private land. 336 villages were submerged by the Bansagar Reservoir: 79 villages are fully submerged and 257 are partially submerged.
Fully submerged villages
The 79 fully submerged villages in Bansagar have been displaced and lost their geographical existence from the map. Some of the historically important villages submerged fully were Ramnagar, Deorajnagar, Baraundha, Markandeya-ghat, Darbar etc. The districts of these submerged and lost villages are as under:
Darbar, Sahijana, Hinauti, Bholgarh, Chap, Padkhudi following Motilal Vora leading to their motocade succeeding an inspection of Bansagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh in 1985
