NEW DELHI: Bihar and Jharkhand Monday signed a water-sharing agreement for Sone river, resolving a 25-year-old dispute over sharing of water between the two states.The agreement, signed here in the presence of union home minister Amit Shah and CMs of Bihar and Jharkhand — Samrat Choudhary and Hemant Soren respectively — will provide irrigation water to millions of farmers across vast rural areas of the states, while also ensuring access to drinking water for the people in both the states.Shah said the agreement is an excellent example of the ‘Team Bharat’ vision and cooperative federalism championed by PM Modi. “While all states possess their own distinct identities, if they move forward as ‘Team Bharat’ within the national context, there is no problem which cannot be resolved,” he said after the signing of the agreement.
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He said that issues concerning vast geographical areas, farmers, rural regions, and drinking water supplies in both states have been “permanently resolved” with the agreement.Sharing details, the home minister said the agreement would ensure the availability of adequate water for drinking and irrigation to a large population across the districts of Bhojpur, Buxar, Rohtas, Kaimur, Aurangabad, Arwal, Gaya, and Patna in Bihar. “Moreover, water would become available for irrigation and drinking purposes in Palamu, Garhwa, and other regions of Jharkhand,” he said.Though an agreement was reached among Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and undivided Bihar on the water sharing of Sone river and the cost of Bansagar dam in Madhya Pradesh in 1973, a dispute started in 2000 when Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar as a new state and it demanded a bigger share of water in Bansagar project as a large chunk of the catchment area came under it. Bihar, on the other hand, cited the 1973 agreement to claim water from the project.
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