Place · Mayurakshi irrigation dam · India
Massanjore Dam
Also known as Canada Dam
Massanjore Dam on the Mayurakshi river in Dumka district, inaugurated by the Canadian high commissioner on 11 December 1955, was the first large irrigation dam built in India under the Colombo Plan with Canadian technical and financial assistance — hence the alternative name Canada Dam that older residents still use. Its command area irrigates about two lakh hectares of the Rarh country around Birbhum and Murshidabad in West Bengal downstream, and the reservoir is a Santal and Paharia fishing and tourism site in Dumka. The project submerged 144 villages in Dumka and Deoghar and remains an unsettled displacement grievance of the Santal Hul tradition.
- Function
- Water & infrastructure
- Patron dynasty
- Government of India
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 24.150, 87.350
Connections (1)
- Site withinDumka
Massanjore Dam on the Mayurakshi river sits in Dumka district forty kilometres north of Dumka town, the headquarters of the Santal Parganas and the sub-capital of Jharkhand. The dam, inaugurated in 1955 as the first Colombo Plan irrigation project in India, submerged 144 Santal and Paharia villages in Dumka and Deoghar districts and remains an unsettled displacement grievance of the regional Santal political parties. The reservoir is managed from Dumka under the Mayurakshi Canal Division; the fisheries co-operative is a Dumka-based Santal self-help federation.
Sources
Standard reference.
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