The Water Resources Department has completed the construction of Bihar’s first rubber dam a year before the scheduled time under the instructions of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to provide water throughout the year in the Falgu river near Vishnupad temple. This will be inaugurated on 8 September by Nitish Kumar.

The foundation stone of this ambitious scheme was laid on 23 September 2020 by Chief Minister and the target was to complete the scheme by October 2023. But later the Chief Minister had directed to complete it before the Pitrupaksha Mela 2022.

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With the construction of rubberdam, water will be available in the Falgu river near Vishnupad temple throughout the year.

Notably, for the first time in Bihar, instead of the traditional country dam, a rubber dam based on modern technology has been constructed, which will not have any adverse effect on the environment.

The entire design of the scheme was prepared keeping in mind the advice given by the experts of IIT Roorkee after site inspection.

“Under the scheme, a 411 m long, 95.5 m wide and 3 m high rubber dam has been constructed on the left bank of the river Falgu in the 300 m low flow of the temple,” mentioned the press statement.

In this, water harvesting has been done by stopping the surface and sub surface water flow of Falgu river and borewell has been established for timely replacement of water. To stop the flow of surface water, sheet pile of length 1031 meters and diaphragm wall of 300 meters has been provided.

Along with this, 411 meters long steel bridge has been constructed for the devotees to walk on the other side of the river towards Sitakund situated on the right bank and one on the left bank of Phalgu and two ghats on the right bank side.

This time Pitrupaksha Mela is scheduled to be organized from 9 to 25 September.

Every year lakhs of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain devotees visit Gaya, the land of religious and mythological legends, the holy land of knowledge and salvation, and a tourist important city.

A large number of them are of those devotees, who come for Pind Daan, bath and tarpan with the wish of salvation of their ancestors.

The flow of surface water in Mokshadayini Phalgu river near the world famous Vishnupad temple was negligible during the rest of the days except some part of the rains, causing a lot of trouble to the devotees coming from the country and abroad.