State revives River Research Institute at Haringhata

Kolkata: Taking a major step, the state Irrigation and Waterways department has revived the River Research Institute (RRI) at Haringhata in Nadia.

The institute with which the names of Meghnath Saha and Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy are attached was lying in a dilapidated state due to the lackadaisical attitude of the erstwhile Left Front government.

The dilapidated condition of the institution came to the notice of the present irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee soon after the Mamata Banerjee government came to power. He went there for a halt while heading for a visit to a far off place. He took an immediate step and decided to revive the institution.

The RRI in its new form with all the modern and updated gadgets and equipment has started functioning from October 2017.

Banerjee mentioned about the RRI during his budget speech in the state Assembly on Thursday. This is the only institution in the country where at present Hydro Informatics is taught. At the same time, there are also courses on hydrology at RRI. It may be mentioned that engineers from different state government departments are undertaking courses in the institution. There are also facilities of higher education and it has been planned to introduce MBA courses as well.

Moreover, a quality control laboratory of the state Irrigation and Waterways department has also been set up at RRI. The initiative to set up the quality control laboratory has been taken to ensure proper quality test of materials without spending much time and money.

The laboratory consists of all sorts of modern gadgets necessary to carry out required tests. Tests for the works that will be undertaken in districts including Nadia and North 24-Parganas are carried out at the quality control laboratory at Haringhata in Naida.