Uttar Pradesh Emerges As The Country’s Model State In Flood Management

Lucknow: Under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh has emerged as a model state in the country in the field of flood safety and water management. From 2017-18 to 2025-26, a significant year-on-year increase has been recorded in the number of flood control projects, flood-protected areas and the population benefiting from these initiatives.

Since 2017, a total of 1950 flood projects have been completed in the flood-prone areas of the state’s eight major river basins, namely Ganga, Yamuna, Gandak, Sarayu, Ramganga, Rapti-Rohin, Son and Gomti. Along with this, 523 embankments have been constructed across a length of 3869 kilometres, directly benefiting more than 3.72 crore people in the state and also providing a strong foundation to the irrigation system.

According to the Irrigation and Water Resources Department, 74 flood control projects were undertaken in 2017-18, which increased to 111 in 2018-19. As a result, the flood-protected area in the state increased from 0.65 lakh hectares to approximately 1.88 lakh hectares, while the beneficiary population rose to 22.03 lakh. In the same sequence, through 151 projects in 2019-20 and 196 projects in 2020-21, flood protection was provided to 2.88 lakh hectares and 5.01 lakh hectares, respectively. In 2021-22, through 167 projects, the flood-protected area in the state doubled to 10.90 lakh hectares, providing direct relief to 46.26 lakh people.

Maintaining steady progress in flood control initiatives, 283 projects in 2022-23 provided flood protection to 3.64 lakh hectares. In 2023-24, flood protection works in the state reached their highest level so far. During this year, 362 projects secured 10.79 lakh hectares, providing relief to 68.97 lakh people. In 2024-25, the operation of 321 projects provided flood protection to 4.97 lakh hectares.

Similarly, in the current financial year 2025-26, so far 285 projects have increased the flood-protected area by 4.33 lakh hectares and provided flood safety to 55.69 lakh people. Through the successful implementation of these departmental projects, more than 37.2 million people in the state have directly benefited.

With the objective of providing protection from floods to people living in river basins, the Irrigation and Water Resources Department also undertakes construction of embankments. Since 2017, 523 embankments with a total length of 3,869 kilometres have been constructed. These include 19 extremely sensitive embankments with a length of 464.92 km and 18 sensitive embankments with a length of 241.58 km. In this sequence, special focus has been laid on anti-erosion and embankment protection works in flood-affected districts such as Ballia, Deoria, Gorakhpur, Siddharthnagar, Bahraich and Kushinagar, among others.

In addition, the department operates approximately 10,727 drainage projects covering about 60,047 km across the state. For their expansion, new dredging works worth Rs 74.32 crore have been approved in Gonda, Bijnor, Hapur, Bahraich and Mirzapur in 2025-26. The continuous increase in flood-protected areas and beneficiary population reflects the people-centric and accountable work culture of the Yogi government. These sustained initiatives have established Uttar Pradesh as the country’s model state in the field of water management and flood safety.