Mayurakshi River is a tributary of the Hugli which rises from the Chotanagpur Plateau and flows through Bihar and West Bengal. It is a multipurpose project of West Bengl to create irrigation potential, generate power and control floods and erosion.

It involves construction of a barrage across the Mayurakshi River at Tilpara (near Suri). But the construction of the Canada dam 32 km. upstream from Tilpara across the river under the supervision of Bihar government is also linked with the project. Canada dam (length 640 m and height 47 m) has a storage capacity of 6,610 lakh ha m of water.

Tilpara barrage (length 308 m) gives birth to two irrigation canals with total length of 1,367 km and providing irrigation to about 3 lakh hectares of area in West Bengal and Bihar. The project also generates about 4,000 kw of electricity which is supplied to Murshidabad, Birbhum (West Bengal) and Santhal Pargana (Jharkhand).