A comprehensive river valley project which serves a number of purposes simultaneously is called a “Multi purposes project”.
1. The Bhakra Nangal Project: India’s biggest multipurpose river valley project is ‘Bhakra Nangal Project’. It has been built at a strategic point where two hills on either side of the Sutlej are very close to each other. It is the highest gravity dam in the world. Its length is 226 metres from the river bed. The canals taken out are 1100 kilometres long. The ‘Nangal Power Plant’ on the Sutlej produces electricity, and serves the states of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and New Delhi. The distributaries are 8400 km in length. It irrigates an area of 1.4 million hectares.
2. Indira Gandhi Project: This project is an ambitious scheme to bring new areas under irrigation so that more areas could be cultivated. The waters of the River Beas and the Ravi are diverted to the River Sutlej. The ‘Pong’ Dam on the River Beas has been constructed to divert the Beas water into the Sutlej in a regulated manner. So that ‘Rajasthan canal’ , the longest irrigation canal in the world can irrigate Gandhi Nagar, Bikaner and Jaisalmer districts of North West Rajasthan, (i.e) a part of Thar desert. The main canal now called ‘Indira Gandhi Canal’ is 468 km long runs entirely in Rajasthan, Western of Sutlej, Beas and Ravi are now being fully utilised for irrigating thirsty lands of South Western parts of our country.
