tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30361594527205909222024-03-18T20:28:26.376-07:00biharfloodsHistorically, floods and their control have never been a big issue in the Ganga-Brahmaputra basin, as it is today. Floods became a major issue after the British occupied India. When they examined the Ganga basin, they believed that if it could be made “flood-free”, they could levy a tax in return for such protection.mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-14084598524562473692010-09-20T09:22:00.000-07:002010-09-20T09:35:12.480-07:00Forty fourth Breach of the Gandak Embankment: Dinesh Kumar Mishra<span style="font-weight:bold;">Forty fourth Breach of the Gandak Embankment in past 24 Years</span><br /><br />The Gandak breached its right embankment in village Semaria of Barauli block of Gopalgunj district in Bihar on the 19th September. This is the 44th breach in the Gandak embankment since 1987 and the according to the Annual Report of the Water Resources Department (WRD) of Bihar as 43 breaches are reported before 2010 floods. <br /><br />The river had played havoc in 2002, 2004 and 2007 also and the same is going to be repeated this year too. Since the WRD cannot maintain the embankments and tried to prevent the water from flowing into the protected countryside for the past few days by building sand walls, which it chooses to call ring bundh or a retired line. It was this retired line that collapsed yesterday, the main embankment had already given way on the 16th. <br /><br />Life of the people living in Gopalganj, Siwan and Saran is at stake just as it was in the Kosi basin a couple of years ago. The Government, however, can cpme out with an excuse that it cannot maintain the embankment that were constructed way back in 1750s by Dhausi Rai, a deputy of Nawab Mir Kasim of Bengal.<br /><br />But before that excuse is given, the onus now falls on the Disaster Management Department DMD of the state to take care of the people hit by floods which essentially means distribution of relief and enforcing provisions of CRF and NCCF apart from plugging the breach in collaboration with WRD. A repeat exercise of Kusaha on the Kosi is in offing and the state machinery is gearing up for the same and talks about Mega Relief Camps are already in air. Relief is the second best option in such cases of dealing with the rivers but it is slowly progressing to the top post.<br /><br />Vrinda Prasad Rai ‘Virendra’ , referring to the floods of the Kosi and Kareh, way back in 1966 had said in Bihar Vidhan Parishad, “…Yoy have built embankments on the Kosi and Kareh without making any provision for the escape of excess water… You enjoy watching the people in distress and you also enjoy distributing relief among them. This is what you have been doing for the past nineteen years.” Vrinda Prasad Rai is not there with us any more but his words still resonate in the ears of any right thinking person even after sixty three years and not nineteen years of independence. <br /><br />Unfortunately, there is nobody left in the political sector to advise the Government on those lines. We all clamour for relief and get it as a matter of right now. How simple the solution is made out to be? Distribute relief after any foreseeable disaster and then pat your own back for helping the people and the people, in turn, forgetting that the basic reason for their miseries is one who is distributing relief, return the gesture by sending one to parliament or legislature.<br /><br />Much before what Vrinda Prasad Rai had said in 1966, Ram Briksha Benipuri, a famous literary figure of Bihar had cautioned the Government (Bihar Vidhan Sabha) in 1956 saying, :…There are people in this country who always keep on look for emergencies and profit from them. They know that if the October rains fail, relief distribution would start and they start making rounds visiting the collectors, SDOs and ministers. These sharks wait for the opportunity that they will have a big fun once the relief operations start. <br /><br />I suggest that an all party relief committee should be formed to keep a vigil on the relief operations and all precautions taken to prevent the vested interests taking advantage of the situation. You remember that sometimes ago when flood relief was in progress, criminal cases had to be instituted against 150 persons. I must say, if the relief operations are to be carried out, they should be carefully executed so that the history is not repeated.”<br /><br />It is also a poser for the NGOs and their donors who presume that it is none of their business to go into the causes of the disaster. That the people are in distress and need help, they must be given. It is a job only half done if they shy away from going into the reasons of the disaster, learn their lessons and act accordingly.<br /><br />Any takers?<br /><br />Dr.Dinesh Kumar Mishra<br />Convenor-Barh Mukti Abhiyan<br />6-B Rajiv Nagar<br />Patna 800024<br />Mob: +919431303360<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwjhWkbcN1OYpE8rT-VuMt28VhJl_CTE_rA1GETSYxBMWFFprAawNY3DChctILMvTXSeARftp8joFK-bFfQEXH7PDzyTxZ7adC166JaBaMVCMDb0J4a1HrS8u1jGRveoJ8-bniG5CATrL/s1600/gandak-150x150.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwjhWkbcN1OYpE8rT-VuMt28VhJl_CTE_rA1GETSYxBMWFFprAawNY3DChctILMvTXSeARftp8joFK-bFfQEXH7PDzyTxZ7adC166JaBaMVCMDb0J4a1HrS8u1jGRveoJ8-bniG5CATrL/s400/gandak-150x150.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519033674284269618" /></a>mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-318199784973572562010-04-12T03:49:00.000-07:002010-04-12T03:53:53.478-07:00Embankments that doom the peopleThe periodic floods in the Kosi basin and embankment breaches have landed the people of north Bihar in a perpetual mess. In assembly sessions, politicians discuss flood relief but seldom the cause behind the disasters, reports Surekha Sule. <br /> <br />9 April 2010 - The Kosi river in north Bihar, which meandered through 15 different channels over 160 kms for 250 years, was finally ‘tamed’ in 1962-63. To arrest her strong currents, embankments were built on either side of its westernmost 8 to16 km-wide channel. However, this move also ended up entrapping 12 lakh population. Over the past 50 years, two generations of people living on this 160-km-wide stretch have forgotten how their forefathers lived with the floods, came up with a decent farm produce, and slept in peace trusting that Kosi would never bother them. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPq2GzWWqFoQS9pmxmgEkANxAzbomojflHP-0I6OiAT6lBsAgC9lr8yley2A_-2-roDMXMOZjw4-mADnSmmRAYi4wBqzhRuJjfklKF2wuCwp6x9VvyHU_IirP1bL7-Aad1uQkxIu7DkHP/s1600/Impact+of+Kusaha.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 330px; height: 202px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGPq2GzWWqFoQS9pmxmgEkANxAzbomojflHP-0I6OiAT6lBsAgC9lr8yley2A_-2-roDMXMOZjw4-mADnSmmRAYi4wBqzhRuJjfklKF2wuCwp6x9VvyHU_IirP1bL7-Aad1uQkxIu7DkHP/s400/Impact+of+Kusaha.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459202191436580178" /></a><br />A bridge that collapsed and got buried under the silt at Birpur. It was one of the first casualties of the 2008 floods following the Kusaha breach. Pic: Surekha Sule. <br /><br />Although the people have been witnessing adverse consequences of this ‘intervention’ ever since the embankments were built, the worst possible disaster struck them when a breach at Kusaha in Nepal on August 18, 2008, turned them into paupers overnight taking away their peace forever. The fertile soil they had so fondly tended to was transformed into wasteland with heavy sand silt. The victims entrapped within have been wailing over this predicament for five decades, in vain. Now those living outside the embankments have also joined the chorus. Whose benefit and security are these embankments for? Isn’t it a lose-lose situation? <br /><br />The Kosi yatra <br /><br />I was part of the 12-member media team that toured the Kosi basin along with the members of Barh Mukti Abhiyan and Kosi Adhyayan Dal recently. The ruined roads, caved-in bridges, collapsed houses, and sand-cast farms grimly reminded us of the horror left behind by the 2008 flash floods. We drove miles and miles through the white soft sand dotted with a few green patches and large water-logged areas covered with deadly hyacinth. Human habitation on either side of the rough-hewn road did not seem to end as people prefer staying closer to the roads for quick escape. Except for the embankments and a few elevations, there were no safe spots. <br /><br />Even now, the people have nothing to work on. Distress migration to Delhi, Kolkata, Punjab, Haryana, etc., is rampant. <br /><br />The Kosi yatra commenced at Khagaria – known as Saat Nadiyonka Sasuraal (Seven Rivers’ Marital Home) as all the seven rivers of north Bihar converge upon Khagaria (see map) which comes under the spell of floods each year without fail. With Saharsa as our base camp, the visits included three categories: the 2008 flood victims’ area in Supaul, the villages within the embankments, and the settlements (officially called ‘encroachments’) on the embankments. <br /><br />Khagaria <br /><br />Khagaria carries an unenviable epithet -- “Duba” (drowned) district -- as not a single inch of land has been left untouched by the rivers. It is being cordoned off in a 26-km-long, 12-15-foot-high ring-like embankment. The notoriety is such that demanding cars or motorcycles for dowry is passé; people now prefer boats as this is the mode of transport Khagaria relies on from June to October. In fact, they cite the example of an IAS officer who got a fibre boat in dowry. During floods, people shift to the upper stories, live on the roads or railway lines, and even embankments. <br /><br />Village Manganj (east), block Triveniganj, district Supaul <br /><br />On the fateful August 20, 2008, Reenadevi’s husband Ramesh Sah, a halwai, had gone to Triveniganj to cook a feast. When the floodwaters kept surging, Reenadevi shifted her children to a cot first and then to a table placed on top of it. Then again, she placed a few boxes on top of the table. Finally, she had to shift them to a nearby house perching on an elevation. They were rescued only after a week when Ramesh came in a rescue boat and took them to Triveniganj. The family came back in November only to find everything destroyed by the floods. <br /><br />Some villagers said they somehow managed to live through the nightmare in five-seven feet of water for a few days by staying on rooftops. When some of them tried to escape, 16 persons were swept away by the strong currents. “Humne apni lungi utharke bahenko bachaya (I took off my lungi to save my sister),” said a villager. Although the area was water-logged for four months, it took two months for the relief teams to arrive. <br /><br />The Manganj people had not experienced floods for over 50 years. The excess rainwater used to seep into large swathes of land and dry up on its own. They reaped the benefits through the enriched soil and put up with the inevitable periodic devastation. Now, having lost the fertile strips to white sand deposition left behind by months of water-logging, the families witness at least one member of the family migrating to Delhi or Punjab in search of work. No wonder a new phrase is doing the rounds: “dhotiwale Punjab/Haryana khet mein, pantwale Delhi mein”. <br /><br />Village Ghiwaha, Block Chhatapur, District Supaul <br /><br />At Ghiwaha too, as the ominous waters kept rising, the panic-stricken lot ran helter-skelter but had few safe spots to take refuge in. While some reached relief camps, others stayed with relatives or somehow made it to Nepal, Delhi, Kolkata, or Mumbai. For those left behind, it was a nightmare as the administration could reach them only after a week and distribute an emergency relief package containing one quintal rice/wheat and Rs 4,000 compensation. However, many needy families were left out. <br /><br />The agony did not end here. Relief is yet to reach the families of five victims who died of snakebites. It’s been two years since the floods washed away the power lines and roads; but neither has been restored yet. Education and health services have come to a standstill and the area still remains cut off from the rest of the world. <br /><br />When asked about the floods experienced 50 years ago, an elderly Ramprakash Mandal said the floods did not cause such widespread destruction then as the waters used to flow over a 40-km-wide stretch and recede soon. People were used to it and even prepared for it. But this time, they were caught unawares. The silt destroyed the land -- their only means of livelihood. “Then population was less. Farmers grew bajra and maize; not rice or wheat as is being done now.” <br /><br />Ramprakash Mandal said how, with a lot of efforts, they sowed the seeds of an agricultural revolution through organic farming. The 2008 calamity wiped out everything with just one stroke and now they are back to 1962. <br /><br />That calls into question the very rationale behind building the embankments. However, Shaligram Pandey still thinks embankments should be there but maintained well so that they do not breach again. Such high expectation from the administration despite the destruction caused by repeated breaches! <br /><br />Mandal said: “Ek yug bita (an era has gone by). And people’s mindset has changed.” <br /><br />From here, we reached Daheria village, block Chhatapur, district Supaul. The situation was no different here either. The same uprooted lives, destroyed infrastructure, and withered hopes. <br /><br />Birpur and Bhimnagar barrage in Nepal <br /><br />We witnessed tremendous devastation at Birpur bordering Nepal -- the first casualty of the 2008 floods on the Indian side following the Kusaha breach. The floods have wreaked havoc on many buildings and a highway bridge. The foundations of many houses have been washed away but some upper structures still stand precariously tilted to the sides. White sand deposits, water bodies and rivers filled with water hyacinth are a common sight. We also visited Bhimnagar barrage in Nepal later in the evening. <br /><br />Village Sirwar within the embankment, district Supaul <br /><br />Sirwar too has lost its roads and power lines to the floods and has been living in isolation. Boat rides through Kosi channels are the only means to reach the villages. The predicament of around 4000 population in this village is such that not a single government official or a teacher or a health worker visits them. <br /><br />Mohammed Hasim, 70, remembers embankments being build around late 50s. He is one of the few lucky ones to have bought a nine-bigha land from a Rajput owner on a slight elevation. He cultivates wheat, maize in rabi season; not rice. He said: “When Kosi is in spate, we save our lives by climbing on the embankments. Then there is water all around. We get coupons but never get any relief material. Relief comes here but never reaches us. We do not know what administration means.” <br /><br />In the absence of proper toilets, Ushadevi, Rajodevi, Shantidevi, and Reetadevi spoke about how difficult it gets, especially for women, when there is water all around for three-four months. People swim to neighbours’ houses as boats float only for fetching supplies, health emergencies, or to ferry people to the village from outside. During one such ordeal, Mohmed Niyamad’s niece drowned as she got stuck in a swamp and could not be saved. Snakes float in the water and many people have died of snakebites too. <br /><br />There have been various tragic instances of people dying on the way to the health centre located outside the embankment. The village doesn’t have a trained midwife and deliveries take place at home. When the situation gets complicated, death seems to be imminent. In 2009, Ramdev Sharma’s daughter died on her way to the hospital to deliver her baby. Similarly, Momina Khatun’s 18-year-old daughter Rabbo’s baby and Basudev Sharma (40) who suffered stomach pain died even before reaching the hospital. <br /><br />Matrimonial ties between the people living outside the embankments and those living inside are rare. Only poor families outside the embankments entertain matrimony as it costs them only one rupee. They call it mangani me shaadi (married at a cost required for engagement). <br /><br />Three caste groups – Sharma, Yadav and Muslim -- live in Sirwar. Others are Bhagat, Thakur, etc. Most of them are “hasuva faros” -- one having no resource to work with. They have only a sickle to cut grass in other people’s fields. Everybody’s land has gone under water. Influential Rajputs from outside the embankments corner the land and give it out for tilling on the basis of sharecropping or rent or sale. <br /><br />NREGA activist Suman Kumar Mishra said the works under the scheme have been undertaken using tractors and wages are deposited in the labourers’ bank accounts. When the latter withdraw money from the bank, contractors’ musclemen snatch the cash. Some 60 percent of daily-wagers have job cards but no money throughout the year. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosPh67RAZDVPXRi4LN-HkJesrFaisLMnsYZOHbHkOpggYKQcQxsRQgWohcflm8klqYen-Nwju7r5BeqvDI1CgWVF5iI3XYms34fMJPboh9K-q5beVtoEofR-pOOBO3BN08AQfWOAvDHHD/s1600/kosi+and+kamla.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 330px; height: 205px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosPh67RAZDVPXRi4LN-HkJesrFaisLMnsYZOHbHkOpggYKQcQxsRQgWohcflm8klqYen-Nwju7r5BeqvDI1CgWVF5iI3XYms34fMJPboh9K-q5beVtoEofR-pOOBO3BN08AQfWOAvDHHD/s400/kosi+and+kamla.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5459202202034348594" /></a> At Khagaria, the Kosi river merges with the Kamla. Pic: Surekha Sule. <br /><br />Momina Khatun, whose son Mehmood Moosa has migrated to Dehradun as a construction worker, said: “every woman’s husband is out for work and 10-15 men migrate for work each day.” On an average, Mehmood sends Rs 500-700 per month through someone coming home and informs her on someone’s mobile in the village. Momina’s husband died four years ago perhaps due to vocal cord cancer. Her second son lives with his family separately and her daughters are married. Her daughter-in-law works in the farm during harvest and gets one out of the 12 lots (boja) she cuts; i.e. some 50 kg of cereals over two months of rabi. They own two goats and a buffalo. <br /><br />Saheb Sharma has three sons, three daughters (aged 2-14) and lives with his wife and old parents. He studied up to inter college in 1994, went to Delhi for work but landed up in menial jobs. He met with an accident while on duty and came back after two years. Now he works as a farm labourer and often takes land on rent. He has two cows, but milk does not fetch good returns here. On an average, Saheb Sharma earns Rs 1400-1500 per month, gets some cereals after farming, but pays half of the farm produce as rent to the landowner. His brother is in Dehardun and his wife with six children stays next door. Children go to school which have no teachers and hence, Saheb pays Rs 20 a month to a village youth for tuitions. <br /><br />Entire population in Sirwar entrapped between the embankments lives below subsistence level and has no contact with the outside world except for a few mobile phones. The official response is as callous as it gets. They say the people have no business to live within the embankments as “they have been resettled”. Some 50 years ago, they were given land only for housing but not for farming. They were expected to till their land within the embankments after the flood waters receded. But the resettlements outside the embankments too have been water-logged and the people were forced to shift back to the villages or on the embankments. Their farmland within the embankments too went under water. There are some villages which got submerged several times in the last 50 years. <br /><br />Village Belwara on the embankment, block Simri Bakhtiyarpur, district Saharsha <br /><br />Despite such devastation, the official ‘solution’ to embankment breaches has been to raise the height of the dam from 8 to 15 feet. According to activist Dr Dinesh Mishra, “the raised embankments can be even more dangerous. The higher the embankments, the more the water held within which exerts far higher pressure on the walls. And if the embankment breaches, a lot more water will force out engulfing the nearby region for sure.” <br /><br />We drove on the embankments in Simri Bakhtiyarpur block where soil was stocked on the embankment for construction. We had to cut short our journey as the jeep wheels got stuck in the soft white topsoil. <br /><br />From the embankment, the difference in height between the riverbed level and outside the embankment was glaring. Because of the heavy silt accumulated over five decades, the Kosi riverbed here got raised by seven feet and hence the water flows at a higher level. On the way, we saw a collapsed sluice gate buried under the silt which was originally built to discharge water of a tributary into the Kosi. Since this tributary cannot discharge water into the main river, its water flows parallel to the Kosi outside the embankment, thus pulling a huge area under it. The water seeps through the embankments and a large area adjacent to the embankment remains waterlogged. <br /><br />Now that the work of heightening the embankment is on, the people living on this embankment since 1987 have been served with notices labeling them encroachers. “Where can we go? We can’t stay within the embankment, can’t live on it, or get resettled at a lower level outside because of water-logging,” the villagers lamented. <br /><br />Jawaharkumar Sharma said: “Our grandfather/great grandfather got 0.2 acre land in compensation and now we are 25 in the family. What do we get out of it?” <br /><br />Umeshkumar, 24, who has migrated to Delhi earns Rs 2000-4000 and sends 1000-1500 to his family consisting of parents, wife, two children, and two brothers. His family pays Rs 5 to talk to him on someone’s mobile in case of emergency. <br /><br />Village Tilathi right outside the embankment, block Simri-Bakhtiyarpur, district Saharsa <br /><br />Shankar Yadav of Tilathi said the villagers had to bear severe losses as the land was acquired for three different purposes: for embankments, excavation, and for resettlement of the villagers inside. However, water-logging forced them back to the villages inside or on the embankment. <br /><br />The waterlogged area is covered with hyacinth which prohibits the growth of farm crops. Wherever land is available, they grow rice, maize, moong, and vegetables. But only two months of rabi farming doesn’t fetch them enough. This time, 75% of the maize sown did not bear seeds and according to the officials, it was because of extreme cold conditions. Such adversities have been triggering migration. People come back here during February-April for rabi season and leave again for Punjab-Haryana to harvest wheat. Trains commute overloaded and overcrowded all the time. <br /><br />Shankar said life was better before the embankments were built. “All the families in the village had land; but after the embankment, both sides are suffering losses, no one gains. In fact, kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis), malaria, and other water-borne diseases strike us regularly.” <br /><br />When asked if they would migrate to a developed area with the family, the villagers said: “where do we go from our birthplace? We need schools, colleges, hospitals, roads, factories, and cottage industries close to our village.” <br /><br />Village Chandrayan adjacent to the embankment, block Nauhatta, district Saharsa <br /><br />In 1984, the embankment here breached and this was the first village to come under the fury of the flash floods. It breached early in the morning and within hours, the flash floods washed away countless human beings and cattle. <br /><br />Ramnarayan Thakur said: “we were in difficulty even before the breach as the water used to seep through the embankments into our village. We have never slept peacefully even after the breach was plugged. Our woes continue to torment us. The roads and the bridges have not been restored. We have no electricity since 1984.” <br /><br />Baidyanath Jha said the river flows within the embankments seven feet above the ground level. “Another breach, and we will all be swept away by the flash floods.” <br /><br />However, an interesting suggestion came from Puneshwar Yadav who said a new embankment should be built from Kusaha (the 2008 breach point in Nepal) to Kursela (where the Kosi merges with the Ganga). <br /><br />Media intervention <br /><br />During our yatra, conversations with mediapersons laid bare crippling lack of intellectual debate on this issue. According to them, the media has not been able to generate opinion even though life has been uprooted several times. Between the ruling party and the Opposition in Bihar, there’s a clear consensus about building the embankments and raising their height. In the Assembly sessions, they discuss flood relief distribution but seldom the cause behind the disaster. <br /><br />Thanks to government restrictions, a journalist added, media has limitations and is far from free. A senior journalist narrated how his seniors pressured him to suppress the truth. It talks about how old the embankments are and how badly they are being maintained but never turn it into a campaign. But some concerned mediapersons said they keep the debate rolling outside the press and said they would support any movement by the people or voluntary organizations to drive home the message. <br /><br />Embankments for whom? <br /><br />Every village within, outside, and on the embankments in the Kosi basin is replete with such sordid tales. The families are fed by their dear ones who migrate and are left to fend for themselves for four months in the flood waters. <br /><br />Flood relief is yet another racket! ⊕ <br /><br />Surekha Sule <br />9 Apr 2010 <br /><br />Surekha Sule is a freelance journalist and environmentalist based in Mumbai, and a Media Fellow of the Ministry of Water Resources of the Government of India. <br /><br />URL for this article:<br />http://www.indiatogether.org/2010/apr/env-kosibank.htmmediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-6211415762980520672010-04-05T03:18:00.000-07:002010-04-05T04:40:40.249-07:00पलायन कर रहे हैं लोग<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2nmECEZMJ1cMyjvcLX7qkUppqpngUtZCtmmMHG2_T6jIq_MXYrtjFW4VtsFIitOI8CKf6OBIDBz5cJEtQ91qjqtwSXeqRGxSVdmHTVhi5hiyUiyJ3FvJ8UJWR7rb5vmnkP9cthAGmEw_a/s1600/kosi+officials.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2nmECEZMJ1cMyjvcLX7qkUppqpngUtZCtmmMHG2_T6jIq_MXYrtjFW4VtsFIitOI8CKf6OBIDBz5cJEtQ91qjqtwSXeqRGxSVdmHTVhi5hiyUiyJ3FvJ8UJWR7rb5vmnkP9cthAGmEw_a/s400/kosi+officials.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456600802219150850" /></a> (Dr D K Mishra [along side a women journalist] with officials responsible for Kusaha breach discussing course of the river on map in the Control Room at Kosi Barrage)<br />पूनम पाण्डे <br />कोसी (बिहार) से लौटकर <br />मुंबई में राज ठाकरे कई बार उत्तर भारतीयों पर निशाना साध चुके हैं। दिल्ली की मुख्यमंत्री शीला दीक्षित भी कह चुकी हैं कि हर रोज हजारों बिहारी यहां आकर बोझ बढ़ा रहे हैं। बिहार से कितना माइग्रेशन हो रहा है इसका कोई आधिकारिक आंकड़ा तो नहीं है लेकिन कोसी नदी के कहर को झेल रहे गांवों में से लगभग 80 पर्सेंट परिवारों में से महिलाओं, बच्चों और बुजुर्गों को छोड़कर लगभग हर कोई बड़े शहरों में जाकर मजदूरी करने को विवश है। इनमें से ज्यादातर दिल्ली, पंजाब, हरियाणा और मुंबई का रुख करते हैं। <br /><strong>कोसी का कहर </strong><br />कोसी को 'कैद' करने के लिए जो तटबंध बनाया गया वह समस्या दूर करने की बजाय दिक्कत बन गया है। तटबंध के बीच बसे गांवों के 8 लाख से अधिक लोग कभी भी जलसमाधि जैसी परिस्थितियों में जीने को विवश हैं ही, तटबंध के बाहर के गांव भी बेहाल हैं। सुपौल जिले के घिवाहा गांव में 2008 में पहली बार बाढ़ आई जब कुसहा में तटबंध टूटा। गांव के बुजुर्ग शालीग्राम कहते हैं कि जब कोसी में तटबंध नहीं था तब बाढ़ का रूप इतना विनाशकारी नहीं था, तब पानी फैल जाता था। <br /><br />अब तो 40 किमी तक उपजाऊ जमीन बालूमय हो गई है। हम आजादी से पहली वाली स्थिति में पहुंच गए हैं। इसी तरह तटबंध के बीच बसे गांव सिहवार (जिला सहरसा) के लोगों का भी कहना है कि तटबंध के बाद कहर बढ़ा है। राजकुमार बताते हैं कि गांव से 80 पर्सेंट पलायन हुआ है। बाढ़ मुक्ति अभियान के कवींद्र पांडे ने बताया कि हमने मधुबनी के परसौनी और लीलजा, सुपौल के गोपालपुर गांव का सर्वे किया जहां 70-75 पर्सेंट परिवारों में से 1 से अधिक सदस्य रोजी रोटी कमाने बाहर गया है। कमोबेश यही स्थिति दूसरे गांवों की भी है। सबसे ज्यादा पंजाब और दिल्ली में माइग्रेशन हुआ है। <br /><strong>तटबंध कितना जरूरी? </strong><br />पर्यावरण एक्सपर्ट दिनेश कुमार मिश्रा कहते हैं कि बाढ़ नियंत्रण पर किया गया खर्च फायदे की जगह नुकसान पहुंचा रहा है। मुक्त रूप से बहती हुई नदी की बाढ़ के पानी में काफी मात्रा में गाद (सिल्ट, बालू, पत्थर) मौजूद रहती है। बाढ़ के पानी के साथ यह गाद बड़े इलाके में फैलती है। नदियां इसी तरीके से भूमि का निर्माण करती हैं। तटबंध पानी का फैलाव रोकने के साथ-साथ गाद का फैलाव भी रोक देते हैं। इससे नदी का तल ऊपर उठना शुरू हो जाता है। रिवर बेड लगातार ऊपर उठते रहने की वजह से तटबंधों को ऊंचा करते रहना इंजीनियरों की मजबूरी बन जाती है मगर इसकी भी एक व्यावहारिक सीमा है। तटबंधों को जितना ऊंचा और मजबूत किया जाएगा सुरक्षित क्षेत्र में बाढ़ और जल जमाव का खतरा उतना ही ज्यादा बढ़ता है। और अब यही हो रहा है। तटबंध और ऊंचे किए जा रहे हैं और अब कहीं तटबंध टूटा तो स्थिति 2008 से भी भयावह हो सकती है। <br /><strong>बाढ़ नहीं... जल निकासी है समस्या </strong><br />कोसी बाढ़ के लिए फैक्ट फाइंडिंग मिशन के मेंबर गोपाल कृष्ण कहते हैं कि कई शोधों से यह साफ है कि कोसी की समस्या बाढ़ की समस्या नहीं, जल निकासी की समस्या है। पहली यूपीए सरकार ने भी अपने मैनिफेस्टो में इसका जिक्र किया था। हालांकि फिर कुछ किया नहीं गया। कोसी में तटबंध बनाने की प्रक्रिया, बिहार के भीतर नदियों को जोड़ने की परियोजना और कोसी में हाई डैम बनाने का प्रोजेक्ट जल निकासी की समस्या का समाधान नहीं है, बल्कि यह उसे और भी गहरा बना देंगे। <br /><br />http://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5687198.cms<br /> <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJhiPbX2WW2vrac9a50vmzZP6D8Ngiqt5jZVBin8-g9RaZq9j5nrVMwmibIL4zIQr1PV4fQgYyvbY41XnqlnP-95vuzDmBo1NAYu-kg-4kxwZjbsXkmZRsMGRGh5Rl4yMplklcXwLEKYuk/s1600/kosi_barrage_02.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 255px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJhiPbX2WW2vrac9a50vmzZP6D8Ngiqt5jZVBin8-g9RaZq9j5nrVMwmibIL4zIQr1PV4fQgYyvbY41XnqlnP-95vuzDmBo1NAYu-kg-4kxwZjbsXkmZRsMGRGh5Rl4yMplklcXwLEKYuk/s400/kosi_barrage_02.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456602495314446738" /></a><br />(Kosi Barrage) <br /><br> <br><br /><br> <br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQc7zmpGYgpZGRRplpQIFrtrDZKzdBm0Jywf0-8fJ4wyaaa9aDH893azR9-x7nNaqD1iKfi7uZNmTVVeDYZsVTMgXfeTKznUTE952G2pZ1WiGmRFZrbrMKTnA0v-qowzmAdO8cDgM0ZEK/s1600/bridge+kosi.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQc7zmpGYgpZGRRplpQIFrtrDZKzdBm0Jywf0-8fJ4wyaaa9aDH893azR9-x7nNaqD1iKfi7uZNmTVVeDYZsVTMgXfeTKznUTE952G2pZ1WiGmRFZrbrMKTnA0v-qowzmAdO8cDgM0ZEK/s400/bridge+kosi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456600831536426098" /></a> <br />(Impact of August 2008 flood in Kosi)<br /><br /><strong>क्यों नहीं बदलता बिहार</strong><br /><br />पूनम पांडे Tuesday March 23, 2010 <br /><br />यह मेरी बिहार की पहली ट्रिप थी। इससे पहले बिहार के बारे में सिर्फ सुना था या फिर खबरों में देखा था। पटना रेलवे स्टेशन से बाहर निकले तो लगा कि यार बिहार भी बड़े शहरों जैसा ही तो है। फिर जब बेगुसराय होते हुए सहरसा पहुंचे तो कुछ-कुछ असली बिहार दिखने लगा। <br /><br />हमें बाढ़ प्रभावित लोगों से मिलना था। तटबंध (embankment) के अंदर बसे गांव और वे इलाके जहां कोसी नदी ने कहर ढाया है, वहां जब पहुंचे तो लगा कि मेट्रो सिटीज़ में रहकर तो हम इनका दर्द बिल्कुल भी नहीं समझ सकते। हर किसी के पास सुनाने के लिए कुछ न कुछ था। कैसे बाढ़ आई और कैसे कई रोज़ वे पानी में फंसे रहे। सरकार बाढ़ राहत कोष के नाम पर करोड़ों रुपया जुटाती है लेकिन क्या वह वाकई इन लोगों तक पहुंच पाता है? उनकी हालत देखकर तो यह कतई नहीं लगा। हर कोई आशा भरी निगाहों से हमें देख रहा था... कुछ ने तो पूछ भी लिया कि क्या आप कुछ बांटने आए हैं। ओह... कितना मजबूर महसूस किया उस वक्त खुद को!<br /><br />इन लोगों की तकलीफ हम जैसे लोग शायद और बढ़ा देते हैं। इसका एहसास तब हुआ जब एक बुजुर्ग महिला को यह कहते सुना कि शहर के लोग आए हैं... देखने कि हम लोग कैसे जी रहे हैं। तटबंध के बाहर बसे एक गांव में जहां 1984 में बाढ़ आई थी, वहां अब भी हालात 26 साल पुराने ही हैं। बाढ़ से पहले वहां बिजली भी थी और सड़क भी पर बाढ़ जो बहा ले गई, वह फिर कभी नहीं मिला। अब बिना बिजली, बिना सड़क के रह रहे हैं गांववाले। कई नेता आए... कई गए पर वहां के हालात नहीं बदले। <br /><br />नाव से नदी पार कर जब तटबंध के अंदर के गांवों में पहुंचे तो बच्चों ने घेर लिया। ये बच्चे भी हर साल मौत को करीब से देख चुके थे। न तटबंध के अंदर के गांव वाले खुश हैं न ही बाहर वाले। तो तटबंध का फायदा आखिर किसे हो रहा है? क्या ठेकेदारों को जो हर साल कहीं न कहीं से तटबंध टूट जाने के बाद फिर से उसे बनाने का ठेका लेते हैं....या फिर सरकारी अफसरों को जो बाढ़ राहत का पैसा गटक जाते हैं और गांववाले उसी हालत में रहने को विवश होते हैं... या फिर नेताओं को जो इन सब पर राजनीति करते हैं? एक गांव वाले ने बताया कि नीतीश कुमार बहुत अच्छे हैं... वजह पूछी तो बोला कि उन्होंने सबको एक क्विंटल अनाज दिलाया। वाह रे राजनीति और वाह रे नेता! बिहार ने कई बड़े नेता दिए हैं पर क्या फायदा? वे सब खजूर के पेड़ जैसे हैं जो न जरूरतमंद को छाया दे रहे हैं और न ही उनके फल तक कोई आसानी से पहुंच सकता है। आखिर इतने सालों बाद भी बिहार के हालात क्यों नहीं बदल रहे? कुछ लोगों का कहना था कि नीतीश सरकार के आने के बाद काफी-कुछ बदला है लेकिन जो बदलाव दिखा, वह सिर्फ पटना या फिर शहरी इलाके तक ही क्यों सीमित है? क्या कोई ऐसा नेता नहीं जो जलसमाधि जैसे हालात में जी रहे गांववालों की भी सुन सके... <br /><br />http://blogs.navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/nonstop/entry/%E0%A4%95-%E0%A4%AF-%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%B9-%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%A4-%E0%A4%AC<strong></strong>mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-69746718076871967852010-04-02T22:51:00.001-07:002010-04-02T23:23:01.711-07:00Lives on the Koshi’s sands<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVulYJ16ntDukQCjgaxeDFyx4mqeZn8bWcyEVPXY_u9z8FddDQkuSpODansJpRv4XEryKWN41npqyKfiwNy1t0W6mYFYHcYgsjae0RfrZ-_wKnvUevSjzGBC97qKJHatFqL_yKyCbAjOOb/s1600/kosiimage.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVulYJ16ntDukQCjgaxeDFyx4mqeZn8bWcyEVPXY_u9z8FddDQkuSpODansJpRv4XEryKWN41npqyKfiwNy1t0W6mYFYHcYgsjae0RfrZ-_wKnvUevSjzGBC97qKJHatFqL_yKyCbAjOOb/s400/kosiimage.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455792885652323906" /></a><br />In August 2008, when the Koshi breached its embankment in Kusaha near the Indo-Nepal border and affected close to 2.3 million people in parts of eastern Nepal and northern Bihar, thousands of people from villages like Manganj East (Supaul) in Bihar thought the worst had come. But a week inside Bihar’s most vulnerable districts and it seems that “the worst” will always threaten the people in this part of the Indian state. Foreboding the breach will almost always be futile; the river will always surprise them, and come with the kind of force one has only seen in disaster films on television. After the floods, years will pass by without much change, leaving behind mostly fear, and acres and acres of fine white silt. <br /><br />The village of Chandrayan proves possibly why these ‘predictions’ seem fairly accurate. This village may well be caught in a time warp since 1984, desperately trying to leap the years and catch up, but unable to do so. In September 1984, the Koshi breached its embankment 75 km south of the Bhimnagar barrage in Nepal. Chandrayan, along with 1,704 other villages, did not see the disaster coming and suffered its first flood. Residents of Chandrayan say that electricity here is still a far-off dream. Much was promised after the disaster, but hardly anything was delivered: a common complaint in the flood-ravaged districts of North Bihar.<br /><br />Two years after the 2008 Kusaha breach, in another village called Givha in Saharsa district, it takes a while to believe what one sees: flat lands meeting the horizon in stark white. “Balu sab jagah hai” or ‘the silt is everywhere’ is a common refrain. There is no possibility of resuming agricultural livelihoods here, which in turn has been the reason for the alarming migration rates, pushing people to New Delhi and Punjab and further away. The village is almost a museum of disaster; everything looks antiquated because of the flood. Buildings are upturned and some, half-broken; it seems the Koshi may have just left. <br /><br />It is well known that the Koshi has changed its course over 160 km from 1737 onwards. Dinesh Kumar Mishra—engineer, prolific writer, and convenor of the Badh Mukti Abhiyan, a community organiser in Bihar’s flood-prone areas says, this is because of the enormous amounts of silt that the Koshi brings from its upper reaches. <br /><br />With a catchment area of over 74, 930 sq. km, the Koshi is Bihar’s lifeline, its swelling and oscillation a way of irrigation. But a myopic, tragic step was taken in 1953, when embankments were built on either side of the Koshi. A barrage was also built at Bhimnagar, at the Indo-Nepal border, to control the Koshi’s flow, which was entirely maintained by Indian authorities. If the course-changing nature of this river had been known and its massive shift plotted, embankments were obviously not a good idea. The solution would be, as Dr. Mishra has written in several publications and as has been advocated by many water activists, a way to manage the silt, and not just the water; to plan a drainage system that would channel the water to be of more use, instead of letting it log both inside and outside the embankments. Yet, the embankments at that time were built at a cost of IRs. 370 million, says Dr. Mishra. The cost of maintaining the embankments has escalated to close to IRs. 2 million, but little initiative has been taken to review the embankments and evaluate their performance after 50 years. <br /><br />A village called Sirwar in Saharsa is one of the 380 villages (about 1.2million people) caught between the embankments. A kilometre’s walk from the Koshi riverbed, the village’s central building is a large school which is still being constructed. The people here are angry and disillusioned with the mechanisms of relief and rehabilitation, because they never fully recover from the floods. Every year, people relocate their shelters atop the embankments, some of them rebuilding their houses so that they live above ground level. But the Koshi has elevated itself 15 feet higher because of the mounting sediment levels between the embankments, which means the residents have to keep building their houses higher. Ram Prasad, who has been mobilising people from Sirwar and surrounding villages to start a movement against the embankments, put its very simply: “Kosi ko mukt kar do,” or ‘Free the Koshi’. Apart from the fact that they are condemned to a life on the embankments every year, losing and reclaiming agricultural land every year, villagers here feel like they have been forgotten. They almost never receive what they are entitled to. Further inside are the villages of Dalit and Mahadalit communities, who are among the most neglected communities of North Bihar. <br /><br />Kavindra Pandey of the Badh Mukti Abhiyan says that in some villages, infant mortality rates are so high that women give birth to over 22 children. Of these, some are sent outside Bihar to bring back money and resources. There is no doubt the number of people who migrate out of Bihar are driven out because of floods, or in some parts of Bihar, the droughts. The floods, in the Koshi’s case however, are largely owed to the engineering flaw that the embankments wholly represent. Inside the embankments, the stories heard are mostly of desperation and utter dejection. But people cannot sustain either desperation or dejection for long, because come monsoon, when the river swells, the people have to wrap up their lives and put them on hold, so they can find another place to live. <br /><br />So while 1.2 million people live unspeakably dire lives inside the embankments, there is no evidence that the embankments have improved the quality of life outside them. There is no evidence that what is commonly referred to the “1953 plan” in its 57th year has not done more harm than good. Or that engineering sense and bureaucratic reason have in fact lent lifejackets to the perennially submerged. <br /><br />Deepika Arvind <br /><br />The Kathmandu Post <br /><br />deepikaarwind@gmail.com<br /> <br />http://www.ekantipur.com/2010/04/03/oped/lives-on-the-koshis-sands/311632/mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-53122849973319808322010-04-02T22:51:00.000-07:002010-04-05T05:43:14.933-07:00The nowhere peopleWhen the foundation stone for the Kosi embankment was laid on January 14, 1955, near Nirmali in Saharsa district in Bihar, euphoric people shouted, Aadhi roti khayenge, Kosi bandh banayenge (we will eat only half a chapati but we will surely build the embankment), writes the prolific engineer and activist Dinesh Mishra in his book, " Trapped! Between the Devil and the Deep Waters." No one really paid any attention to the protests and the fears of the people who would live with these embankments and what would happen to their lives.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiz5ivZJWt4sWTjwtdcii65Me4DrXNeU_7KEwmOyULbG8l6M4dFjx24brTX2tVcypzSJA7fB7VgPEcevAGprmRePgMhdP_A2n6ji6RPJVmrWaFnpYOfrU2KliP-8h6HTokuIKBGBVn14M7/s1600/On+Kosi+Model.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiz5ivZJWt4sWTjwtdcii65Me4DrXNeU_7KEwmOyULbG8l6M4dFjx24brTX2tVcypzSJA7fB7VgPEcevAGprmRePgMhdP_A2n6ji6RPJVmrWaFnpYOfrU2KliP-8h6HTokuIKBGBVn14M7/s400/On+Kosi+Model.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456623239285295266" /></a> (In picture:Dr Dinesh Mishra with journalists from Indian cities explaining)<br />Fifty-five years later at least the first part of the slogan is true. Boxed between the embankments, the river floods every year, leaving behind fine white silt. A villager remarked to Mr. Mishra once that living in the Kosi region was akin to a camel's life in the desert. The fine white sand is everywhere. Like the wretchedness. It settles all over the land, over people, on their hair, their faces and bodies, giving them a whitish ghostly look. Swathes of it have destroyed<br />agriculture and made communication impossible. Cattle herds kick up a dust storm in their perambulations as half-clothed children mind them with a stick.<br /><br />What is not covered with sand is waterlogged, packed tightly with water hyacinth. Much has been written about the Kosi River in Bihar and the tribulations of the people living in India's most unpredictable river basin. The Kosi River has moved 160 km — its shift has been plotted since 1737 from Sauradhar to Lajunia, says Mr. Mishra. It is well known that Jawaharlal Nehru first saw the floods way back in October, 1953 and ordered that something had to be done. Over one million people in 380 villages live in between the two embankments and their lives are caught in a time warp.<br /><br />Visitors to the villages will be greeted with dusty, clamouring hordes of men, women and children full of rancour and complaint. They can do little else. North Bihar has several rivers criss crossing it but drainage has been a perturbing issue the embankments have not solved. Embankments are meant to control the river's flooding and the same sand has been stacked up to form artificial barriers that snake along the volatile Kosi while she goes this way and that, in a bid to keep her in check.<br /><br />Fear of "humma"<br /><br />Steeped in the culture of water the people had words for every stage of the river. From the time the rivers start to swell with the first flush of rains till the big-time floods. The word "boh" describes how the water starts entering the fields once the monsoon has set in. That was a happy event, recalls Kameshwar Kamati, an activist of the Badh Mukti Abhiyan from Madhubani. The water made the soil fertile and did not cause much damage. But now people feared the major flood — called the "humma." "There is no boh now only humma," quips Kamati. In a region where cattle rearing is the main economy, agriculture was secondary. Yet it once boasted of 300 varieties of rice and people grew sugarcane, sweet potato, pulses and oilseeds. Since 1963 the Kosi barrage built across the border in Nepal was supposed to irrigate the land in India.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCk7H4wdcgEcJc-GSZPxr0MQ4glgD4KHJgx4mLqLHeFR5yjZhFf98XrODUtvhOXJN9QSFmLYLTwHZOc1gWie3pxLNlxT-qEAlF4MWO3DAvbhz4otJHiuvC-G5KtJMPPVc4uLOXPsxqH6_a/s1600/impact+of+kusaha+breach.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCk7H4wdcgEcJc-GSZPxr0MQ4glgD4KHJgx4mLqLHeFR5yjZhFf98XrODUtvhOXJN9QSFmLYLTwHZOc1gWie3pxLNlxT-qEAlF4MWO3DAvbhz4otJHiuvC-G5KtJMPPVc4uLOXPsxqH6_a/s400/impact+of+kusaha+breach.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456627545189002978" /></a><br />In 2008 the afflux bund breached for the first time at Kusaha flooding large tracts of land and killing 587 people. Over 3,700 are missing and the floods ravaged 993 villages in five districts. Before that seven breaches in the embankments have killed hundreds and now towns like Nirmali and Khagaria, which has seven rivers nearby, have concrete rings around as flood protection. About 18 districts of North Bihar with a population of 5.23 crore are affected by the floods every year. Despite<br />floods, the Bihar government has only just started building shelters on stilts, hardly a consolation. You can see a spanking new one on the way to Manganj East in Supaul district, where memories are fresh about the floods in 2008 after the Kusaha breach. Bhim Jadhav watched his sister being swept away in the water, and young Roshan Kumar is still to recover after a relief box fell on him fracturing both his legs. For two months, water stayed in the village and most people fled to Delhi and<br />other cities. "It was the first time we had floods. We had very good agriculture till then. Most of our cattle died in the water," says Mohammed Kalim.<br /><br />Kusaha is only 70 km away from this village, it took two days for the water to come here unannounced. Since then 11-year-old Roshan cannot walk and his mother Geeta Devi has arranged for him to be taught at home. In Ghivha, 70-year-old Jalandhar Prasad recalls that when there was no embankment, the floods were manageable. "There is sand everywhere and agriculture is so difficult. Wheat needs more water and the borewells are drying up. Production has also declined," he adds. Akhilesh Mishra points to his water logged land." Now I can fish here instead of growing crops," he grins.<br /><br />A broken bridge at the entrance of the village says it all and a dilapidated school with a gaping room destroyed in the floods has not been repaired. "We have got no funds so far for repairs," says Bhola Prasad Yadav, coordinator of the school. The school with 880 children has two other small rooms. The flood-affected landscape is not hard to recognise. In Birpur, only eight km from Kusaha, which bore the brunt of the floods, concrete houses have collapsed into the ground, roofs are open and the walls are titled at strange angles.<br /><br />The plight of the people caught between the two embankments of the Kosi is miserable. The worst among them are the Musahars, an extremely backward community which lives on the edge. Landless and illiterate, most are sharecroppers. In the Hasuliya tola of Musahars, Jamila's son works in Punjab. Their homes were on the other side of the river but since three years they have moved here. This little hamlet has been displaced three to four times. There is no school for children and no<br />anganwadi. These are the people who are not supposed to be there, remarks Mr. Mishra, whose work on the Kosi river is legendary.<br /><br />They have job cards under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme but they are all blank. They keep changing their homes due to the vagaries of the river. People living near the embankment are faced with repeated migration as the height of the embankment is being raised as in Belwara. In Sirwar village in Saharsa district, Sarup Choudhary and family spend most of the monsoon on a machan, a raised wooden platform in his house. "We cook, eat and sleep on this small platform every year," he says. He is clear like others in this sprawling village right on the Kosi's erratic banks, that the embankments are the reason for the water flooding the area every year. The kharif crop is no longer possible and most people migrate for work. "Because of the embankments for three months we are stuck in water. Sometimes we go hungry," he adds.<br /><br />"Often we eat only once a day," says Mukhiya. Everything is built on a height, the homes, the shops and even the only concrete building in the village — the school. The children spill around in the village as rarely do the teachers come. Health is a major issue. People have to cross the river at Rs. 5 a trip and there is only boat<br />available in the rains. The primary health centre in Mahishi, across, is open till noon and rarely does it have any doctors. Many die here to lack of medical attention, specially in the rains when the swollen river does not permit them easy access to the outside world. The little land they have gets eaten up by the river every year or gets submerged in the monsoon.<br /><br />Case for evaluation<br /><br />Despite the loss of life, the flooding, dwindling agriculture and phenomenal migration, there is no evaluation of the embankments till today. Engineers extol the embankments and say that they cannot be connected with the waterlogging and it was natural for low lying areas to be flooded. The breaches are a natural calamity as the river changes course. A sort of collateral damage. Engineers and politicians have<br />formed a coalition of the willing to support embankments. An engineer at the Kosi barrage guaranteed 100 per cent safety of the embankments —but what can one do against a natural disaster, he remarks. Undeterred by the lessons from Kosi, the Bihar government is pursuing a path of building more embankments in a bid to contain other rivers where the experiences are equally damaging. There is a strong case not only for a complete evaluation of the embankments as a flood control policy but<br />also for a cost-benefit analysis of the entire investment in embanking rivers in Bihar.<br /><br />Meena Menon, The Hindu<br /><br />http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/19/stories/2010031954251100.htmmediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-12233370864024085532010-03-20T03:08:00.000-07:002010-03-20T03:32:18.301-07:00News Update on Kosi-Gross injustice has been done to Bihar by not giving any special package to flood victims of Kosi region on the pattern of tsunami and Aila victims. <br /><br />-Infrastructure project development firm KNR Constructions on Wednesday said the company in consortium with two other firms has bagged a project worth Rs 225.27 crore from the Bihar Government for renovation of Eastern Kosi Canal System. The company’s 50:25:25 joint venture with JKM Infra Projects and Kamala Constructions has been awarded the contract by the Bihar Government for extension, renovation and modernisation of Eastern Kosi Canal System, KNR Constructions said in a filing to th e Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).<br /><br />Hyderabad based KNR Constructions (formerly K Narasimha Reddy & Co.) is an infrastructure development company, based in Andhra Pradesh, which provides engineering, procurement and construction management services across the roads and highways, irrigation and urban water infrastructure sectors.<br /><br />-In the year of Kosi disaster about 1,20,000 hectares of land went under water in August, 2008 destroying not only the kharif crop but also sharply reducing the rabi acreage.<br /><br />-Principal Accountant General, a Constitutional body has in its report held the improper work by the state Water Resources Department responsible for the breach in the Kosi embankment. Nitish Kumar government is now questioning the authority of the Principal Accountant General (PAG). "PAG does not have the power to govern. If the report comes to me then I will see what action can be taken. But there can be no action based just on reports," says Bihar Water Resources Minister Bijendra Yadav.<br /><br />The Principal Accountant General (Audit), Bihar, Arun Kumar Singh observed that the lack of sincere approach in protection work by the state Water Resources Department (WRD) led to the breach in the eastern Kosi embankment near Kusaha on August 18, 2008. The PAG has observed that the Water Resoures Department, Bihar ignored the proposals of the Head, Works and Eastern Kosi Embankment Divisions, Birpur regarding protection work on vulnerable sites of the embankment and took no steps to protect it, the flood protection works were centred mainly on spurs and the embankment remained untouched. The PAG also noted that there was lack of coordination between Nepalese and Indian administrations on the safety measures of the Kosi project area. <br /><br />The exit conference on the audit, which was held on December 17, 2009 the PAG said that WRD did not furnish reply to queries of his office on certain points on the pretext of the constitution of inquiry commission under the chairmanship of retired Justice Rajesh Balia, by the government of Bihar to inquire into the facts of the Kosi breach. But the denial of reply was violation of Regulation-13 on audit and accounts relating to scope of audit.<br /><br />-Nationalist Congress Party National Media Convenor Suraj Yadav’s petion to Prime Minister the PMO vide PMO ID No 1/3/2009-PMP 1/87862 dated 2nd November 2009 has informed the petitioner that the petition has been forwarded to Secretary,Ministry of Home Affairs,Govt of India, “for action as appropriate”.<br /><br />Prof. Suraj Yadav had petitioned to National Human Rights Commission in September 2008 demanding an inquiry into the Kosi Tragedy and to fix the responsibility for this human sponsored tragedy which had cast doom for lakhs of people in nearly eight districts of Bihar.mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-90646000968695342022010-03-20T03:05:00.000-07:002010-03-20T03:07:11.198-07:00Crop Failure in Kosi RegionBihar State Assembly proceedings came to a grinding halt on March 16, 2010 after Opposition party MLA’s kicked up a storm over the ruling NDA government’s alleged failure to address the issue of maize crop failure in the flood-afflicted Kosi belt.<br /><br />Pandemonium prevailed during the zero hour when Akhtar-ul Imam of the RJD declared the maize crop in the Kosi belt to be “a total failure” while accusing the government of “displaying gross insensitivity” by failing to address the plight of maize cultivators along the Kosi region.<br /><br />Mr. Imam charged the State Government of not taking adequate measures to compensate farmers “who were being forced to take the extreme step of committing suicide following severe crop failure”.<br /><br />When the State Government failed to provide a satisfactory reply, Opposition MLAs from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress and the Left parties stormed the well, brandishing stalks of maize in their hand, demanding that a thorough inquiry be conducted to assess the damage suffered by farmers.<br /><br />The session resumed only after speaker Mr. Uday Narayan Chaudhary assured the Opposition that the matter would be taken seriously, while directing the Government to conduct a thorough investigation into the affair.<br /><br />Agriculture Minister Ms. Renu Kuswaha later told newsmen that the Government “was trying to ascertain whether the failure had been brought on by the bad quality of seeds or by inclement weather.”<br /><br />Purnia, one of the worst flood –hit districts in the Kosi belt, has over 12,000 hectares under maize cultivation. Owing to floods, farmers in the belt are increasingly opting for maize cultivation due to the high yield promised by the crop, instead of the traditional paddy and jute harvesting.<br /><br />Last week, forty-year old Jagdish Sharma of Mohinipur village in Katihar district committed suicide while Mohammad Nazim of Purnia attempted to take his life, after their maize crop had failed.<br /><br />The kin of both these small-margin farmers claimed that “heavy debt,” made worse by “continual crop failure” had driven them to take an extreme step.<br /><br />However, when contacted, the SP of Katihar denied that the maize crop had failed in the region and said that Sharma’s death had been caused “as he had accidentally inhaled a pesticide”.<br /><br />On the other hand, Purnia District Magistrate N Shravan Kumar, who has admitted to the failure of the maize crop, has indicated that poor quality seeds may have caused it.<br /><br />Earlier, BJP MP from Katihar, Mr. Nikhil Chaudhary had also promised that he would urge the Bihar government to address the plight of the small-margin farmers besides raising the issue in Parliament.<br /><br />The Hindumediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-10492325471961627712010-03-20T03:00:00.000-07:002010-03-20T03:05:07.090-07:00Worst Environmental Crisis of South AsiaKosi's drainage crisis is the worst environmental and public health crisis in South Asia. I have returned from Kosi region on 15th March, 2010. Let me flag three things:<br /><br />1. A Commission of Inquiry was constituted by the Government of Bihar under the chairmanship of Justice Rajesh Balia, Retired Chief Justice, Patna High Court to enquire into the causes of breach in the Eastern Kosi Afflux Bund on 18th August 2008 so as to prevent occurrence of such disaster in future. TOR of this Commission is right in looking at the Kosi crisis since 1953. TOR should include India-Nepal treaty as well. Commission is faced with non-cooperation from government<br />Departments. Kosi is waiting for yet another disaster in August-September 2010<br /><br />2. So-called solutions to Kosi crisis such as High Dam in Nepal, Interlinking of Rivers within Bihar and more embankments would aggravate the crisis<br /><br />3. UPA-1 manifesto promised to work to solve the drainage crisis of North Bihar (& Nepal) but so far it has not done anythingmediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-82038574490440769832009-09-25T07:06:00.000-07:002009-09-25T07:22:12.833-07:00"कटते हुए वनों का शोकगीत"I just read the story "कटते हुए वनों का शोकगीत" in The Public Agenda, which draws our attention towards the disturbing trend of reduction in the forest cover of Nepal at the rate of 270 ha/ day, the role of mafia iand Maoists in the Himalayan forests, ten fold increase in the rate of siltation in Kosi in the last 26-27 years. and the sad plight of Ganga. I was amused to note that you have completely ignored the contribution of misplaced structural engineering intervention, massive land use change and deforestation on the Indian side despite the fact that 79 % of the Ganga basin is in India. Hopefully, Ranjit Kumar, the writer of the story will deal with it in his next article. Participating in an group discussion on the internet, Kumar made a submission that "only techonology is not responsible for kosi disaster. Corruption played major roll in the failure of kosi project".<br /><br />He has missed the role of corruption in the drafting of Kosi project plan and Kosi treaty, intellectual dishonesty of people like Dr K L Rao, Kanwar Sen and Nilendu Sanyal and the failure of Bihar Vidhan Sabha in dealing with vested interests has led to the choice of embankment technique as a "temporary solution". And now "multipurpose" High Dam and Interlinking of Rivers within BIhar as a "permanent solution" for flood/drainage crisis is fraught with grave ecological consequences. The environmental crisis in Kosi region could be deemed one of Asia's biggest environmental disaster. The culprits must be identified and made accountable.<br /><br />Refusing to learn anything from the drainage crisis in the Kosi region, when govt engineers recommend and promote the same failed and discredited embankment technique for the Baghmati region, it is understandable why sensible engineers like Dr V N Sharma and others get outraged. <br /><br />On the role of jornalists, when it comes to news reporting on the Kosi river, I read a content analysis of the coverage in Nepal and India and that Indian journalists commit the same kind of error year after year after year. The analysis noted that one gets to see more news on the Kosi barrage under the control and operation by Bihar govt emerging from Nepal-based media houses rather than in the Indian media. <br /><br />It appears that the hydrocracy of Bihar never informs the Bihar journalists the truth of what is going on at Kosi barrage and embankment fronts of both Kosi, Baghmatiand all the rivers you mention in your news report.<br /><br />Joining the debate Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra, a well known river basin expert wrote: "Corruption is an outfall of programmes that were not intended to yield results. When everybody except the so called benificiaries knew that the results cannot be achieved, they thought to make hay while the sun shines by telling lies, whilte lies and what not. When the planning was corrupt, it would only lead to corruption. Someone became Minister at the Center, somebody got national decorations like Padma Bhushan etc and the others were made chairpersons of various committees and so on. One of the senior Congressman had termed Kosi Project as Kamadhenu and Kalpataru. You stand under Kalpataru and ask for anything you would get it or if you ask Kamdhenu for any favour, she is there to fulfill it, he is on record to have said this in Bihar Vidhan Sabha. Those who did not ask for laurels, asked for money and got it. I have a sincere feeling that corruption is a non-issue in such projects, it is a corollary. If one wants to know more, look for 50th and 53rd Report of the Estimates Committee of Bihar Vidhan Sabha (1973) and score of such documents that talk about loot devided by four among engineers, contactors, politicians and bureaucrats. There is a saying in Bangla that a person dug holes in the ground looking for earth worms and he found snakes coming out. Try it, you will find snakes instead of earthworms."mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-38814239973692709372009-08-03T00:21:00.000-07:002009-08-03T01:01:12.614-07:00Flood situation worsens in Bihar as another river breachesNote: According to DAILY FLOOD INFORMATION BULLETIN dated August 2, 2009 brought out by <br /><a href="fmis.bih.nic.in">Flood Management Cell </a>of Water Resources Department of Bihar government "Action (has been)initiated to plug the breach between Bagmati right embankment between 54km. to 55km., (about 6 km. up stream of Kataunjha road bridge on NH-77) under Runnisaidpur block in Sitamarhi distt. Stone boulders are being carried to the site from Dheng and sand filled E.C. bags are being stored to plug the breach. Constant vigil is being kept. The river is flowing above danger level but showing receding trend at Sonakhan, Dubbadhar, Kansar/Chandauli.<br /><br />As per a letter dated August 2, 2009 of Central Water Commission's Middle Ganga Division-V as of 6 AM, 3rd August, 2009, the water level in Bagmati river would remain be 61 cm above danger mark. <br /><br /><br />Gopal Krishna<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Flood situation worsens in Bihar as another river breaches</span><br /><br />More than four lakh people were reeling under the impact of floods in Bihar with Lakhandei river breaching its embankments at two places, worsening the situation in Sitamarhi and Muzaffarpur districts on Monday. Lakhandei, swelled by swirling flood waters of turbulent Bagmati, breached the embankment in a stretch of over 200 metres near Tilak Tajpur in Sitamarhi district early on Monday, Tirhut Divisional Commissioner S M Raju said.<br /><br />The water also destroyed its embankments at Baraitha Masjid and another place under Katra block in Muzaffarpur district late last evening. Flood waters submerged over 75 villages under Katra, Gaighat and Bandara blocks in the district, affecting a population of around three lakh, Raju said. Engineers and labourers were working day-and-night to plug the breach in stretches of 50 metres at two places on the embankment of Lakhandehi, he said.<br /><br />The National Disaster Response Force personnel with boats, life jackets and relief were engaged in providing relief and succour to the affected people. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who undertook aerial survey of the flood-hit area in Sitamarhi, announced a compensation package for the displaced persons on the pattern of the one made available to flood-hit victims in Kosi belts in 2008. <br /><br />A Sitamarhi report quoting official sources said the rescue teams of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Border Security Force (BSF) and NDRF continued the rescue operations on a war-footing. Nearly 15,000 people, rendered homeless due to the breach caused by the Bagmati, have so far taken shelter on the embankment of river for whom make-shift camps were being raised, report said, adding all those inundated by floods have been evacuated to safer places.<br /><br />The embankment of river Bagmati was overcrowded with displaced persons and the state administration was arranging for their meals, it said. The chief minister, who had already ordered a joint inquiry by the Tirhut Divisional Commission and DIG (Muzaffarpur) into the causes leading to Bagmati breaking its embankment, said each affected family would be provided one quintal of foodgrains and Rs 2,000 as per the calamity relief fund provisions.<br /><br />About one lakh people have been affected by the breach of Bagmati river. The authorities have so far distributed 3000 plastic sheets, 150 quintals of beaten rice and jaggery among the flood-affected people in Sitamarhi district. The swollen Bagmati also inundated the national Highway Authority of India (NHAI) construction camp at Garha, bringing the construction work to a grind halt in Sitmarhi, official sources said.<br /><br />According to the state flood control room in Patna, major rivers in north Bihar, including Kosi, Gandak, Burhi Gandak and Bagmati are in the spate following heavy rains in the catchment of these rivers. Water level of Bagmati is above the danger marks at some points along its course in north Bihar, while Gandak is also rising following discharge from Nepal, sources added.<br /><br />3 August, 2009, Patna<br />Indian Express<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Bagmati waters flood 2 more blocks</span><br /><br />MUZAFFARPUR/SITAMARHI: The flood waters from Saturday’s breach of Bagmati river in Bihar submerged two more blocks of Muzaffarpur district adding thousands more to the nearly one lakh people rendered homeless.<br /><br />This despite the flood fury in Runnisaidpur block in Sitamarhi district being tamed with the breach at Tilak Tajpur village more or less plugged on Sunday.<br /><br />About 800 labourers, who worked relentlessly for 24-hours, plugged a major portion of the breach by placing boulders and other materials by afternoon. The breach is expected to be totally plugged by Sunday midnight.<br /><br />CM Nitish Kumar, who along with chief secretary Anup Mukherjee and other senior officials made an arieal survey of the flood-affected villages in Runnisaidpur (Sitamarhi) and Aurai (Muzaffarpur) blocks during the day, held a review meeting on relief and rehabilitation on a school campus in Runnisaidpur. The CM is understood to have issued strict instructions to officials to save villagers and provide relief marooned people.<br /><br />Nitish said divisional commissioner (Tirhut) S M Raju and DIG B Srinivasan would probe the reasons behind the breach .<br /><br />Raju said 75 per cent of the breach-plugging work had been completed by afternoon and the remaining work would be completed within the next 12 hours.<br /><br />Meanwhile, two companies of National Disaster Rescue Force (NDRF) have arrived in Runisaidpur with 32 mechanized boats from Begusarai and Bihta.<br /><br />Giving this information, NDRF commandant Sukhdev Raj said over 200 marooned villagers have been rescued by his men on Sunday.<br /><br />He said the situation was not as grim as compared to last year’s deluge.<br /><br />“During the Kosi deluge last year, the people were unwilling to leave their homes even if they were facing acute problems. This has not been the case here this time,” Commandant Raj said.<br /><br />Reports said flood victims taking shelter on the embankment made the breach-plugging exercise difficult by looting workers as well as relief materials. The situation was brought under control by deploying police and expediting relief distribution.<br /><br />The NH-77 was under two feet water at Kauahi village which disrupted movement of vehicles between Muzaffarpur and Sitamarhi.<br /><br />Sources said when PWD men reached there to put sandbags along the western flank of the highway to stop the flow of water, villagers prevented them from doing so. As it was important to keep the highway open for vehicles to carry relief materials, police and SAP jawans had to intervene to chase away the villagers. Work to stop the flow of water over NH-77 was in progress till the evening, the sources said.<br /><br />Muzaffarpur DM Vipin Kumar said two teams of National Disaster Rescue Force (NDRF), each comprising 20 personnel, were pressed into service on Sunday for rescue and relief operation among nearly 70,000 flood victims.<br /><br />Official source said over 50 villages in Sitamarhi and Muzaffarpur districts have been affected by flood waters of the Bagmati. About 30,000 people have taken shelter on embankments and roads near Runnisaidpur. No loss of life has been reported so far.<br /><br />Priti Nath Jha & Shyam Kishore Singh , <br />The Times of India <br />3 August 2009, 04:42am ISTmediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-37469643453120050132009-07-21T00:17:00.000-07:002009-07-21T00:25:27.025-07:00Kosi Drainage Crisis, Linking Bihar's Rivers & High DamKosi basin's crisis is one of the most under-rated environmental disasters of South Asia. The Kosi treaty between India and Nepal was/is a historical blunder. It provides the basis for misplaced structural interventions in the Kosi basin. The treaty must be re-visited and must adopt a river basin approach. In India, planning for flood management commenced with the Five Year Plans, particularly with the launching of National Programme of Flood Management in 1954. <br /><br />Kosi, a major tributary of Ganga of the Himalayan eco system carries the heavy load of sediment therefore, it is a mistake to build any barrage, dams and embankments on it. <br /><br />Embankments have led to a rise in the level of the river-bed and the consequent elevation of the river above the level of the ground on either side, possible attacks by the river further downstream, and of course the emergence of waterlogging and even flooding in the areas ‘protected’ by the embankments because water cannot drain from those areas into the river. <br /><br />Floods are natural phenomena and the disaster narrative imposed on predictable floods seems misplaced. <br /><br />Besides other concerns it must be remembered that dam-and-reservoir project is rarely built exclusively for flood-control. It is generally a multiple purpose project of irrigation, power-generation, flood-control, etc. <br /><br />Such a Multi-purpose Kosi High Dam project is conflict of purpose ridden because flood-control requires space for flood-waters and irrigation or power-generation would require the dam to be as full as possible. Is the proposed Kosi High dam exclusively meant for flood-control? <br /><br />Indeed the sane response is that floods should be predicted, anticipated, flood-preparedness and timely evacuation. <br /><br />By now the evident fallacy of ‘flood control’ is widely acknowledged fact. It is high time flood control structures are done away with in a carefully crafted manner to restore natural flooding regime step-by step in a calibrated way.<br /><br />These pearls of wisdom reverberated the precincts of India International Centre and Jawaharlal Nehru University, when Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra visited Delhi recently. <br /><br />Engineering projects are politically engineered for creating the right context for fishing in the troubles waters. In the aftermath of a ritual assurance given by the Indian and Nepal Water Resources Ministers who "reassured the people of two countries of the safety of the barrage and its flood embankments," a Panel Discussion on "Floods in India: A Recurring Nightmare" at India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi on 17th July 2009 and at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on 18th July questioned such empty words and assurances which have become routine and are meant to protect the vested interests who are well entrenched in both ruling as well as opposition parties. <br /><br />Projects like Kosi High Dam and interlinking of rivers are ecologically and socially disastrous, which is being promoted as the panacea of all ills by the central government, Bihar government and APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India.<br /><br />The panelists at IIC included G S Purba, Chief Engineer, flood management, River Management Wing, Central Water Commission, Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra, a voice of sanity on the issue of drainage crisis in South Asia and a veteran civil engineer from IIT-Kharagpur besides Gopal Krishna, Convenor , Water Watch Alliance and Member, Fact Finding Mission on River Kosi. Dr Sudhirendar Sharma , Director, Ecological Foundation introduced the subject of drainage crisis in Kosi basin and the locus standi of the panelists on the issue. <br /><br />The discussion happened in the backdrop of the recent visit of Pawan Kumar Bansal, Union Minister of Water Resources of India to the Kosi Embankment and barrage in Nepal and the visit of Kalam to Bihar.<br /><br />Kalam appreciated the Bihar government's decision to inter-link rivers of north Bihar that would help in controlling floods and irrigate the parched lands of south Bihar. Kalam had addressed a joint session of the Bihar state legislatures in 2006 arguing for inter-linking of rivers. Such an approach has already been rejected by the Government of India's National Commission on Integrated Water Resources Management in September 1999.<br /><br />Earlier, joint press release of India and Nepal dated 12 July, 2009 noted that the purpose of Bansal's visit was to undertake a joint inspection with Minister of Irrigation of Nepal Bal Krishna Khand of the repair works carried out following the breach of Kosi embankment in August 2008. The joint inspection undertaken on 12th July. The inspection team included Minister of Water Resources Bijendra Prasad Yadav of Government of Bihar, Ambassador of India in Nepal, Rakesh Sood, and Umakant Jha, Secretary, Ministry of Irrigation and other senior officials from India and Nepal.<br /><br />The joint press release issued by India and Nepal government "expressed satisfaction on the timely and satisfactory execution of the Kosi breach closure works. It was a challenging task to revert the river back to barrage by constructing a diversion channel and coffer dam and then to plug the breach. This could be accomplished only through joint cooperation and close coordination between the two governments. They also inspected the repairs undertaken at other vulnerable points along the Kosi embankment and expressed satisfaction. They appreciated the level of the preparedness of the two governments, including large quantities of reserve materials and boulders stacked along the embankment and spurs to meet any exigency during the floods. The two sides have agreed to conduct round the clock patrolling of the embankments during the flood season for any emergent repair works as needed. The Nepalese side assured necessary security." <br /><br />Unmindful of the havoc caused by embankments, the "Government of India is also providing assistance to Nepal for strengthening of existing and construction of new embankments along Kamala, Bagmati, Lalbakeya, Sunsari, Trijuga, Lakhadehi and Kankai rivers. The detailed project report for strengthening of embankments along Khando river is under consideration. The design and implementation of these schemes is carried out by the agencies of the Government of Nepal."<br /><br />Although structural engineering measures like embankments and dams have failed, the same is being promoted by the governments in its myopia.<br /><br />The discussions between the Indian and the Nepali ministers included working on long term solutions of the flood problems caused by Kosi river, which flows about 42 Kms. in Nepal after descending from the mountains and before entering India. The media has reported that these long-term solutions mean Kosi High Dam and Inter-linking od Rivers within Bihar.<br /><br />Despite 207 recommendations of the National Flood Commission, 1980, at the discussions held at both at IIC and JNU, it was observed that the frequency and intensity of floods has grown in the country over the years primarily because of the increased encroachment of flood plains. It is clear that none of the recommendations have been acted upon. An environmental assessment of Kosi basin is long due to assess the damage done to it by the engineers who acted under tremendous political pressure against even their own engineering wisdom. <br /><br />While Kosi crisis was declared national calamity by the Prime Minister, the Union Budget indeed aggravated the injustice done to the Kosi affected region, the engineering experiments being undertaken with political consensus of sort has turned citizens of North Bihar and Nepal into guinea pigs. It is such experiments which eventually makes migrants out of Biharis and Nepalis who face humiliation and assault all over the country.mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-75437826382095838012009-04-08T22:42:00.000-07:002009-04-08T22:52:15.837-07:00Business as usual in Kosi BeltRefusing to learn anything from past mistakes the embankments are still being built or repaired in Kosi and Bagmati. Kosi flood disaster of 2008 was spread over 5 districts, 35 blocks, 993 villages affecting 33.29 lakh people and spread over an area of 3.68 lakh hectares in India alone which resulted in loss of nearly 600 persons and destruction of 2.37 lakh houses. And nearly 1.5 million people spread over 414 villages trapped between the two embankments of the Kosi which is the route of the normal river flow in a normal year. There is no reason to believe that similar crisis be witnessed this year too.<br /><br />Around a dozen Lok Sabha seats and 22 Bihar Vidhan Sabha seats fall in the Kosi belt. Congress-RJD-LJP is trying to make large-scale “destruction” as triggered by the Kosi as the main poll issue. It has been reported that Nitish Kumar, the chief minister did not visit those flood-affected districts during his month-long Yatra because the people in the Kosi belt or the victims of the Kosi disaster are hardly going to vote for the JDU-BJP regime.<br /><br />The National Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the Congress-RJD-LJP led Central Government made a solemn pledge to the people of the country in 2004 to undertake “Long-pending schemes in specific states that have national significance, like flood control and drainage in North Bihar.” Despite acknowledging the problem, it is shocking that neither the Central nor Bihar Government conducts any survey to assess the effect of flood control measures on the socio-economic conditions of society and chooses to ensure that status quo is manitained to safeguard the inhuman selfish interests of contractors in repair and construction.<br /><br />Rashtriya Barh Ayog (National Flood Commission) was constituted in 1976 to evolve a coordinated, integrated and scientific approach to the flood control problems in the country and to draw out a national plan fixing priorities for implementation in the future. Its report was submitted in 1980 and accepted by Government but the implementation of its recommendations did not happen. Union Ministry of Water Resources set up an Expert Committee to review the Implementation of recommendations of Rashtriya Barh Ayog (RBA) in October. The Committee identified the bottlenecks faced by the state government in its implementation and suggested measures for implementation of RBA recommendations for effective Flood Management in the country. <br /><br />On August 19, 2008, the chairman of this Expert Committee on the Implementation of recommendations of Rashtriya Barh Ayog (1980 report) said, “It is my impression that not much has been done to implement the suggestions made by the committee’s report.” And now a Commission of Inquiry has been constituted by the Government of Bihar under the chairmanship of Justice Rajesh Balia to enquire into the causes of breach in the Eastern Kosi Afflux Bund on 18th August 2008 so as to prevent occurrence of such disaster in future as if the same is not clear from the reports of the previous Commissions, Committees and Task Forces.<br /><br />Gopal Krishna<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Barh Mukti Abhiyan Press Release</span><br /><br />27th March 2009<br /><br />“If it had not breached at Kusaha, it would have anyway breached at<br />this point,” points a villager towards the probable location on the<br />eastern bank in village Rajabaas near Prakashpur in Sunsari district<br />of Nepal, located 14 km upstream of Kusaha where the Eastern Afflux<br />embankment of the Kosi had breached on the August 18, 2008.<br /><br />The river has indeed come close to the embankment at the site and with<br />the spurs that protect the embankment in no good condition, a<br />potential danger lurks. The setting is seemingly perfect for another<br />breach! The state has just woken up, collecting stones for the<br />protection work in case the river decides to gnaw the embankment.<br />Should that happen, what course the river would adopt before it joins<br />that Ganga is not known just as it was not known the course last year<br />following the breach at Kusaha?<br /><br />So, that’s what the Water Resources Department leaves it during this<br />year to be reaped (faced) by the Disaster (mis)Management Department<br />of the state. Since there is no dialogue between the two, the vicious<br />cycle gets perpetuated year after year.<br /><br />That is the inference of a team of 15 professionals and social workers<br />that visited the area hit by last year’s devastating floods of the<br />Kosi during March 21-27, 2009. The team noted that the repair works at<br />Kusaha are far from complete although the engineers at site claim that<br />they will complete the work to their ‘entire satisfaction’ by April<br />20, 2009, eight months after the last year’s disaster, before fresh<br />water reaches the site following snow-melt in upper catchment. This<br />claim will have to be verified in days to come.<br /><br />Everyone hopes that they are not caught on the wrong foot again! The<br />Kosi flood disaster of 2008 was spread over 5 districts, 35 blocks,<br />993 villages affecting 33.29 lakh people and spread over an area of<br />3.68 lakh hectares in India alone which resulted in loss of nearly 600<br />persons and destruction of 2.37 lakh houses. But for the colour of the<br />sand, a vast area of the Kosi basin now resembles Jaisalmer<br />(Rajasthan) and may need the help of the experts of Central Arid Zone<br />Research Institute CAZRI, Jodhpur for revival of agriculture in the<br />region.<br /><br />That is only one half the story. The other half about which no concern<br />is shown by anybody (Government and NGOs included) comprises of nearly<br />1.5 million people spread over 414 villages trapped between the two<br />embankments of the Kosi which is the route of the normal river flow in<br />a normal year. “We literally have our houses on our shoulders and<br />despite using weed or wood fired chulha for cooking, no cobwebs are<br />seen on our thatched roofs. We have to shift our houses much before<br />spiders start developing the webs”, says a resident of village<br />Nirmali, trapped between the two embankments of the Kosi in Supaul<br />district. Their problem is perennial just as the flow of the river.<br /><br />The team visited the Bhutahi Balan and the Kamla Balan basins and<br />finally landed up in the Bagmati where mammoth embankments are being<br />built or repaired. These are being raised and strengthened to provide<br />a greater degree of protection to the people living outside them. But<br />from Dheng to Runni Saidpur there is hardly any reach of the<br />embankment that has not faced the wrath of the river and the breaches<br />and yet the people and the Government believe that these structures<br />would protect them from floods.<br /><br />That silt contained in the river waters is equally responsible for the<br />devastation that is caused by rising bed level of the rivers and<br />subsequent failure of the embankments can be seen in the villages of<br />Raksia and Ibrahimpur of Runnisaidpur block of Sitamarhi district. A<br />27 feet high mosque in Raksia is submerged in sand and only top 5 feet<br />is visible above the ground while a temple of Lord Shiva has to be dug<br />out every year from the sand to offer puja in the latter. Will the<br />engineers and the politicians ever recognize the secular behaviour of<br />our rivers?<br /><br />The team was shocked by the joke that is played in the name of the<br />development in Kaala Pani area of Runnisaidpur. Nearly 75 squire<br />kilometers of land has been submerged because the embankments on the<br />Bagmati blocked the entry of the Manusmara into it and as if that were<br />not sufficient, the unprocessed effluents from a sugar mill were<br />dumped into the Manusmara to make the submergence black and stinking.<br />No agriculture is possible with such ‘waters’ and there has been no<br />crops in the area for the past ten years now. The farmers of Kaala<br />Pani remain engaged in agriculture, but in Punjab and Haryana.<br /> .<br /><br />Dinesh Kumar Mishramediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-32663682048430162792009-02-18T08:49:00.001-08:002009-02-18T08:49:52.409-08:00Kosi High Dam Multipurpose Project DPR preparation underwayGovernment of India is in constant dialogue with the Government of Nepal. For early implementation of high dams on river Kosi, Kamla and Bagmati in Nepal. <br /><br />For this purpose, a Joint Project Office -Saptakosi and Sunkosi Investigations (JPO-SKSKI) has already been set up in August, 2004 at Biratnagar (Nepal), for conducting detailed field investigations, in order to prepare Detailed Project Report(s) of Sapta Kosi High Dam Multipurpose Project and Sun Kosi Storage-cum-Diversion Scheme in Nepal, jointly. <br /><br />In addition, JPO-SKSKI has also been entrusted the task of carrying out the Feasibility Level Study of Kamala Multipurpose (Dam) Project and the Preliminary Study of Bagmati Dam Project in Nepal.<br /><br />This information was given by the Minister of State for Water Resources, Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav in response to a question by Moinul Hassan in the Rajya Sabha.<br /><br />February 17, 2009<br />Ministry of Water Resourcesmediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-57662253090777908822009-01-08T07:38:00.000-08:002009-01-08T07:39:04.583-08:00Threats to the security of Ganga basinIsn't diversion of Ganga, and its tributaries through Interlinking of Rivers project or Kosi High Dam, the biggest threats to the security of Ganga basin? <br /><br />Almost echoing the words of Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra, B G Verghese submits that Kosi region "...is possibly being the most blighted part of the entire country The flood has wiped the slate clean. We have a wonderful opportunity to write a completely new script that could put North Bihar in the vanguard of India’s social and economic progress. But none has as yet shown the imagination to do so."<br /><br />" Repairing the breach in the Kosi’s eastern embankment in Nepal will not guarantee the safety of the 50 year-old Bhimnager barrage" which It has been a long- standing Nepalese grievance that this barrage was built just within its boundary with Bihar and not further upstream, thereby providing Nepal greater flood protection, irrigation and energy benefits. That is history."<br /><br />But the danger lies in his prescription for engineering solution that is quite contrary to the Ganga basin approach that Prime Minister's Office has announced. Verghese says, " If the Bhimnagar barrage has outlived its lifer, could/should it not be replaced by a new barrage optimally sited further north. Could that also possibly serve as the re-regulating dam for the proposed Kosi High Dam (Barakshetra)-cum-Kurule-Sun Kosi diversion for which a joint detailed project report long under preparation is now to be expedited? In combination, the High Dam and new barrage could help regulate the river and moderate floods, some of the flood being diverted at Kurule into the Sun Kosi and thence beneficially into the water-stressed Kamla basin within Nepal."<br /><br />He also submits revealing his support for Interlinking of Rivers project saying, "An additional possibility would be diverting some of the Kosi storage eastwards into the Mechi river that marks Nepal’s border with West Bengal. This could in turn augment the flows of the Mahananda and Teesta to resolve an Indo-Bangla argument."<br /><br />But again he partly and deceptively echoes Dr Mishra, "Further, should the Kosi be fully restored to its pre-August 2008 embanked channel via the Bhimnagar barrage, so as to maintain the existing irrigation system, or should the new eastern arm that has opened up along an old alignment be also kept alive?" but very soon retreats into the make believe worl of structural engineering. <br /><br />Verghese does not realize the limitations of his suggestions "With some desiltation and training works, this could be converted into the proposed navigation channel to link Nepal to the sea, an aspect of the High Dam study. This second channel could also serve as a flood-reducer by diverting high monsoon flows into yet another channel."<br /><br />Vergese feels that "The World Bank and ADB would surely assist any credible programme, including dam building, and carbon credits could defray some of the costs."<br /><br />Despite global financial crisis it is amazing that trust in these institutions remains intact.mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-61848190318016596642009-01-06T21:41:00.000-08:002009-01-06T21:44:34.718-08:00What are the biggest threats to Ganga basin?Initiating a structured discussion on the Ganga river basin-covering parts of Nepal, India, Tibet and Bangladesh- wherein approximately one in twelve people in the world live, considered submission of 400/500 words are invited from a holistic perspective to comprehend and articulate the crisis that has emerged from the current fragmented and fractured approach of the governments, academia, civil society and corporations of commerce and religion. <br /><br />Being a moderated discussion, participants are expected to stay focused around the lead questions:<br /><br />What is Ganga River Basin approach? Does it apply to only 79% of Ganga basin, which is in India? Will it include 13 % of Ganga basin that is in Nepal, 4 % in Bangaldesh and 4 % in Tibet? What is its relationship with the river systems and with the composite Ganga-Brahmputra-Meghna basin and its consequences? <br /><br />How does it affect the policies of Industry, Power, Agriculture, Urban Development, Health and Environment by the central government, the governments of eleven states (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, NCT of Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttranchal, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal), the neighboring countries and industry bodies like CII/FICCI/ASSOCHEM/PHCCI? <br /><br />What is the relevance of Ganga River basin approach when the river channel has been amputated from the flood plains besides the amputation of the river channel itself? <br /><br />Will the Third Phase of Ganga Action Plan (GAP) or the proposed the Ganga River Basin Authority which is to consider its formation in a meeting likely to be held on January 15 and its proposed river basin approach affect the quality of surface water, ground water and the survival of natural flow of the rivers in the basin? (The GAP-I which was to be completed by March 1990 was extended till March, 2000 when it was declared complete but Phase I of the Plan is not yet fully complete and GAP-II which was to be completed in 2001 was extended till December 2008. This too remains incomplete)<br /><br />What is the meaning of the official ceremonial and ornamental status being accorded to Ganga just prior to the upcoming parliamentary elections?<br /><br />Which among the following are the biggest threats to Ganga basin?<br />a. National Interlinking of Rivers project of NDA & UPA, <br />b. UP’s Ganga Expressway project, <br />c. Uttarakhand’s Bhairon Ghati, Loharinag-Pala, Pala Maneri and Maneri Bhali hydro-projects<br />d. Some 191 heavily polluting industries in the Ganga basin states <br />e. West Bengal’s Farraka Barrage<br />f. Bihar’s Interlinking of Rivers project or Kosi High Dam <br />g. Pollution from “Religious” Activities<br />h. Corporate funding of political parties<br />i. Co-opted NGOs<br /><br />What is required is not yet another Authority but genuine basin approach to overcome these threats. <br /><br />Given the significance of the discussions, general submissions to the list will be held back (only most important submissions will get posted).mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-55589850330590063652009-01-02T00:22:00.000-08:002009-01-02T00:25:46.572-08:00Kosi Breach and Beyond<strong>Interaction on ‘The Kosi Breach and Beyond’</strong><br />Living with the Kosi <br /><br />At a meeting on - 17 December 2008 in Patna, experts from Nepal and India grapple with watery issues. <br /><br />By Shiven Thapa <br /><br />Thousands of years ago, hunter-gatherer societies discovered that hunting alone is insufficient for their long-term survival and they subsequently took to farming. In need of perennial sources of water for their crops, they moved to lands that were close to rivers. As much as the rivers became the lifeblood of these societies, the natural process of occasional flooding led human settlers to either ‘learn to live with the flow’ or ‘manage’ it. <br /><br />Thus, began the epic struggle between these two divergent approaches, which ceaselessly continue to awe and shock humans till date – evident from the 18 August flooding of the plains of north Bihar and India, as the Kosi River breached its eastern embankment, and devastated lives and livelihoods, as it has done for more than one millennium. With this breach, the Kosi has carved out a new route altogether and there is a river now where there was earlier none. The Kosi has shifted 120 km eastwards, going back to a course it had abandoned more than 300 years ago and in so doing; it has rendered more than 300 km of embankments useless. On 27 August, the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh declared the floods in Bihar a “national calamity”. The Kosi floods have left more than two million people homeless, and destroyed 250,000 homes, including 247,000 acres of farm land. <br /><br />To take stock of this tragedy and encourage further debate on the issue, Barh Mukti Abhiyan and Himal Southasian organised a day-long conference in Patna on 17 December titled The Kosi Breach and Beyond. Water experts, engineers, activists, policymakers, researchers and journalists from India and Nepal participated in the meeting, and deliberated on the following issues of concern: <br /><br />High dam vs. no dam<br />-There is a need to look at high dam proposals and the Kosi in the context of the broader India-Nepal water relationship. <br />-India is averse to Nepal receiving multilateral assistance on high dam projects. <br />-Where is the money and overall capacity for mammoth projects? <br />-If a high dam is built on the Kosi, massive displacement and submergence of areas will take place. <br />-Ethnic groups in Nepal are questioning the implications of a high dam on the proposed model of federal states. <br />-Large high-tech projects are the fantasies of ambitious rulers and do not rank on the cost-benefit scale. <br />-The 1950s was an era of engineers, the 1990s that of environmentalists, and in this decade, anthropologists also have a role to play – floods and dams cannot be confined to only engineering solutions. <br />-If a high dam is to be constructed upstream, three questions need to be answered – how much land will be submerged; is it earthquake-prone; and how much bio-diversity will be lost? <br />-Embankments are now being discredited in a coordinated way to build up a case for high dams on the Kosi. <br />-There is a contradiction between flood control and power generation – dams cannot be serving both purposes simultaneously. <br />-Multipurpose dams have limitations because of contradictory goals. <br />-The merits of the school of thought which says we should live with the floods, and advocates for a non-technological and non-interventionist solution. <br /><br />Bureaucracy, policy and politics<br />-Bureaucratic red tape in India and Nepal – When the Kosi office in Biratnagar writes to the Ministry of Water Resources in Kathmandu, the complaint/query/suggestion is sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Foreign Ministry then sends the note to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, which forwards it to the Bihar Government, which in turn dispatches it to the Kosi office located in Birpur. <br />-A parallel economy operates in the embankment areas due to the politician-contractor nexus. Until this is broken, innovative solutions to the annual Kosi crisis will be difficult to come by. <br />-There are major gaps between estimated and real areas irrigated. (see Dinesh Kumar Mishra’s table in Himal article.) <br />-National water policies of Nepal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh appear to be similar. <br />-Government decisions are based on impulses – policymakers will never live to see the result of their decisions. <br /><br />Solutions to the Kosi floods<br />-The best way out of the Kosi crisis is an integrated river basin approach. <br />-Social, environmental, economic costs must be measured – the Bhakra Nangal dam can be studied. <br />-Community centred, decentralised water management is needed – pick a tributary and be creative. <br />-Reductionist engineering interventions must be avoided. <br />-Lessons can be learnt from the Yellow River in China – they have built a dam that also generates 20,000 MW of electricity. <br />-Yearning for a permanent solution ignores the fact that engineering is simply a discipline of experiments. <br /> <br />Most issues raised during this interaction converged on the view that mainstream thinking on river management and engineering solutions have remained in a state of denial despite evidence to the contrary. The belief in embanking and damming remains as it was. The high dam proposals floating around in policy circles in India and Nepal claim to be a ‘permanent solution’, but overlook the dangers of seismicity. Moreover, water-related discussions in Southasia have often tended to focus on macro-level issues such as droughts, floods, rivers, dams, and irrigation, but without end-user involvement. There is also little evidence of intra-research community linkages, and no institutional mechanisms appear to be in place to share findings in a sustained manner. Studies on rivers in Southasia fail to take a comprehensive view of the river system – the river is often studied in isolation to the ecological system of which it forms an integral part. Clearly, the Kosi too cannot be understood in isolation. <br /><br />WATCH OUT FOR EXTENSIVE REPORTAGE AND ANALYSIS IN HIMAL’S FEBRUARY 2009 ISSUE!<br /><br />About the event: <br />Himal Southasian and Barh Mukti Abhiyan brought together 26 eminent water experts, engineers, activists, policymakers, researchers and journalists from India and Nepal for a day-long "Interaction on the 'Kosi Breach and Beyond'"<br /><br />As the waters released by the 18 August breach of the eastern embankment above the Kosi Barrage at Kausaha in Nepal slowly recede, media coverage of the tragedy is fast dwindling both in Nepal and India. Given the impact of the Kosi inundation, which affects a large number people in one of Southasia’s poorest regions, and also due to the complicated geopolitical dimension of this cross-border river, it is important that a scientific, people-centered and humanitarian response be evolved. <br /><br />One of the main focus of the event was the discussion on the impact of the recent breach, as also the viability of the different alternatives, including a) keeping the Kosi confined within the existing embankments; b) building a high dam; c) other possible engineering solutions; and d) going back to the historical experience of living with the flood in the plains, and adjusting livelihoods and infrastructure to the annual inundation. <br /><br />Contact us at shiven@himalmag.com or at +977-1-5552141 for any queries regarding the event.<br /><br />Programme:<br />Date: 17 December 2008<br />Venue: Hotel Ambassador, Patna, India<br /><br />Welcome note: Dinesh Kumar Mishra <br /><br />Introductory remarks: Kanak Mani Dixit<br /><br />Session one:<br /><br />Discussion on Kausaha Breach and status<br /><br />Session two:<br /><br />Status of proposed Kosi High Dam<br /><br />Session three: <br /><br />Consolidation of the proceedings for the day and open discussion<br /><br />Participants list:<br />Ameet Dhakal<br />CK Lal <br />Dinesh Kumar Mishra <br />Dr Arun Dhoj Adhikary<br />Dr. V.N. Sharma <br />Devashish Chatterjee<br />Dunu Roy<br />Gopal Krishna <br />Hari Roka<br />Kalyan Rudra<br />Kanak Mani Dixit<br />Kavindra Pandey<br />Prashant Jha <br />Prof C.P. Sinha <br />Rajendra Dahal<br />Rajendra Singh<br />Sankar Ray<br />Tula Narayan Shah <br />Uday Shankar<br />Chandra Kishore Jha<br />Abhay Mohan Jha<br /><br />Source: http://himalmag.com/The-Kosi-Breach-and-Beyond_dnw105.htmlmediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-59610612180951530902008-12-06T06:28:00.000-08:002008-12-06T06:35:30.220-08:00Misplaced Interlinking of Bihar rivers projectAfter Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, Bihar too is initiating the misplaced project of linking rivers even as it is being predicted that "Ganga would soon become a seasonal river-flooded in monsoons and dry in the summers." <br /><br />Out of the 30 links in the National Interlinking of Rivers project that includes 14 links in the Himalayan component, 6 river-link canals are directly related to Bihar. It is noteworthy that quite like Tamil Nadu, Bihar too is proposing its linking of rivers projects as independent of the national project. <br /><br />States like Kerala, West Bengal and Punjab have rejected such projects. Neighboring countries Nepal and Bangladesh too has rejected Interlinking of Rivers projects in the past. <br /><br />Unmindful of the global ecological changes and river basin approach Uttar Pradesh has already launched Ganga Expressway Project in 2007 to construct a 1047 km access controlled eight-laned expressway running along the Ganga river to provide connectivity and as a flood control measure although the catastrophe brought about by such measures is quite evident. <br /><br />Continuing the same trend, Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Bihar's Water Resources Development Minister informed the Bihar Legislative Council on 4, December that inter-linking of rivers could rid the state of perennial problems of flood and drought. Replying to a special debate on drought like situation prevailing in many districts of south Bihar, Yadav said "unless and until rivers are inter-linked the twin problems can not be solved." Yadav said the inter-linking of Bihar rivers would cost more than Rs 4,000 crore.<br /><br />Stating that 26 percent area of the state are drought-hit, Yadav informed the Vidhan Parishad that the state did not have any reservoir which was crucial for irrigation. It was either in Nepal or in Uttar Pradesh.<br /><br />Replying to a debate on perennial problem of flood in the state referred to the devastation caused by the Kosi deluge and the probe by judicial commission underway.<br /><br />Nearly 33.55 lakh people in five districts of north Bihar were affected by the devastation caused by the Kosi deluge due to the breach in the embankment at Kusaha in Nepal on August 18.<br /><br />The Centre has constituted a high level committee, consisting of three representatives of the Centre, two from Nepal and five from Bihar government, for the repair and maintenance of the embankment. <br /><br />He said the state did not have any reservoir which was crucial for irrigation. It was either in Nepal or in Uttar Pradesh.<br /><br />He informed the House that about 33.55 lakh people in five districts were affected by the Kosi deluge.<br /><br />Earlier, on 25 November, 2008 the Supreme Court sought a detailed status report from the government on the implementation of five river-linking projects in southern, western and central India.<br /><br />A bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan asked the central government to apprise it of the latest developments on the projects by the fourth week of January.<br /><br />The bench, which also included Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice J.M. Panchal, also asked Maharashtra and Gujarat to apprise the court of the reasons for the delay in signing a treaty between the two states for interlinking the Par, Tapti, Narmada, Daman Ganga and Pinjal rivers.<br /><br />The bench also asked Tamil Nadu and Kerala to apprise the court of their differences in linking three rivers - Pamba, Achankoli and Vaippar - in their regions.<br /><br />The apex court is seized of the issue since the very inception of the concept by erstwhile National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2000.<br /><br />Supreme Court had taken cognizance of the issue on its own and has been monitoring the implementation of the project since then.<br /><br />It had been seeking status reports from the central government and various government agencies besides the state governments on river-linking and issuing directions to them to expedite the project.<br /><br />The bench sought to examine the progress in implementing the five projects.<br /><br />Besides examining the projects in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the other projects that the court sought to examine include those of interlinking the Ken and Betwa rivers in Madhya Pradesh.<br /><br />The court also examined the progress in linking the Parbati, Kali Sindhu and Chambal rivers in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.<br /><br />The fifth project that the court sought to examine related to the interlinking of the Godavari and Krishna rivers involving Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. <br /><br />A workshop was inaugurated by Nitish Kumar, Bihar Chief Minister to decide Bihar's stand the issue in May 2006 at Water and Land Management Institute, Phulwarisharif, Patna and to discuss the Impact of National Plan of Inter Linking of rivers on Bihar and suggestions of Bihar State. <br /><br />In the aftermath of Kosi deluge, such ecologically disastrous engineering projects have been dismissed as a "solution". <br /><br />Notably, as Union Finance Minister even P Chidambaram and later Jairam Ramesh dismissed the economic viability of the project. <br /><br />Most recently, even 'development' advocates like Suman K Bery, Director General of New Delhi-based National Council of Applied Economic Research advised the governments to forgo its mega PPP (public private partnership) projects and concentrate on strengthening the existing infrastructures in the light of the crash of US and the European markets as a response to the upheavals in the world economy. <br /><br />Chief Ministers of Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh seem to live in their own make believe world of past and remain allergic to ecological and futuristic vision based state interventions.mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-16989245334073213682008-10-27T14:41:00.000-07:002008-10-27T14:44:57.146-07:00A happy Diwali?The tragedy of Bihar — the devastation wrought because the mighty river Kosi changed course after it breached its embankment in Nepal on August 18 — has slipped off the pages of newspapers and TV screens. The calamity has also been virtually ignored by most international humanitarian aid agencies, and even national relief organisations. The people affected are among the most impoverished in this land, and floods seem to be part of the periodic tribulations that these hapless people stoically cope with, along with caste violence, deaths by starvation and militant violence. Surely this cannot continue to make news!<br /><br />But it would be a grave mistake to regard the destruction by the Kosi river in Bihar as ‘just’ another flood. One of the major tributaries of the Ganga, Kosi is often called the Sorrow of Bihar because of frequent floods and changes in its course. However, what transpired since the embankment collapsed was no ordinary flood. The river impetuously traced a new course, across fields and dense settlements for 150 kilometres, often 15 to 20 kilometres wide. Its untamed waters swept away more than 300,000 houses in 980 villages in the districts of Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa, Araria and Purnea. It destroyed standing crops of paddy, wheat and vegetables in 110,000 hectares of fertile land. An estimated 3.2 million people lost their homes and livelihood, many times more than in any natural disaster in the country in recent history.<br /><br />The loss of life has been fortunately small for a disaster of this scale. The government estimates are that 194 people died in the floods, although the figures are hotly contested. But even if the numbers of the dead swell manifold with evidence of missing and drowned people burgeoning over time, it will still be far below the levels of other national natural disasters of the past decade, such as the Orissa super-cyclone of 1999, the Gujarat earthquake of 2001 and the tsunami of 2004, in each of which deaths mounted to tens of thousands of people. But the devastation of homes and livelihood by the wayward river far surpasses the worst of these other disasters.<br /><br />These are people who had never faced floods in their lifetime because there was no river near their homes to flood its banks. As they incredulously saw with terror the raging waters of the unfamiliar river enter their villages and fields, many declared that this was no flood; they were witnessing pralay or the destruction of the world predicted in the scriptures. In regions with no history of floods, there were no country boats and motor boats for rescue locally available. These had to be requisitioned from other districts, and military, paramilitary and the civil authorities launched one of the largest evacuation operations ever, rescuing hundreds of thousands of people who had taken shelter on embankments, canal walls and the roofs of homes that were still standing.<br /><br />More than 400,000 women, men and children were housed in relief camps in tents and school and college buildings, whereas others took refuge with relatives and some even left the state. Given the enormous scale of devastation, and relatively very small assistance from international and national humanitarian agencies, the state administration has managed to house large dispossessed populations in orderly camps, with arrangements for food, milk and schooling for the children. Winter will come with fresh challenges for camp residents.<br /><br />However, as the flood waters have begun to recede, we found that anxious villagers are gradually leaving the camps for their villages, to assess their losses, protect what may be left of their homes and possessions, and pick up the string of their lives. Apart from almost an unprecedented scale of devastation and severe constraints of resources and the impoverishment of the affected people, the greatest impediment is the uncertainty over the future course that the capricious river may choose to take in the years to come. It is being debated among experts whether neglect and corruption in the maintenance of the embankment caused the destructive breach, or whether the design of the embankment was itself intrinsically defective and this was a disaster waiting to happen. <br /><br />Villagers seek one guarantee from the authorities before they rebuild their homes and try to reclaim their lands and livelihood, and that is that the waters of the river Kosi will not return to their villages in the coming years. But officials off the record affirm that they are unable to provide any such assurance.<br /><br />The challenges of reconstruction are aggravated further by the fact that the people affected include some of the most chronically indigent in the country, and one of the most unequal and divided societies. Caste and patriarchy made themselves felt even in the orderly government relief camps, where people of disadvantaged castes, single women and old people were denied scarce relief assistance. The majority are landless or unrecorded tenants, and with the landlords’ fields silted over, there is little prospect of work and food unless the government gears itself for massive wage employment public works. <br /><br />Farms in Punjab may be their only hope for oppressed survival, but they fear that if they leave Bihar, they may miss out on the little relief the government may offer. Even a few thousand rupees are a small fortune for people who survive on nothing. There is a grave danger of the trafficking of children in these areas because of extreme poverty and family distress, or their dropping out of school into child labour. In the face of a human tragedy of this scale, it would be unconscionable for the country to simply look the other way.<br /><br />Harsh Mander<br />October 27, 2008 , Hindustan Timesmediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-53886785921086854852008-10-18T21:45:00.000-07:002008-10-27T14:40:31.874-07:00Kosi (Mithila) Crisis: "Kusaha Breach and Thereafter"At a talk & a day long Panel Discussion in Patna on "Kusaha Breach and Thereafter", heated exchanges between pro-"kosi high dam" engineers and proponents of "living with floods" ended with an apparent conclusion that high dams & embankments are less of an engineering interventions and more of a political intervention. On 17 October, on the eve of two months of the Kosi breach, the talk was delivered by Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra, a well known voice of sanity with regard to Kosi crisis. <br /><br />Failure of dams as flood control structures has been demonstrated in Orissa, Gujarat, Maharasthra and Jharkhand. <br /><br />Disaster management and relief centric narrative that has become the dominant factor came in for severe criticism. <br /><br />A white paper was demanded, while sharing the Hindi version of the Fact Finding Report on Kosi “Kosi “Pralay”: Bhayaavah Aapada Abhi Baaki Hai” sought accountability of Kosi High Level Committee (KHLC) and provide a remedy for the drainage crisis in North Bihar as was promised by the UPA government's Common Minimum Programme. All the activities of KHLC should be put in suspension till the time their liability is fixed and Justice Rajesh Balia Judicial Commission of inquiry set up on September 9, 2008 is completed. The commission’s recommendations must not meet the fate of several dozens of committees and it must recommend criminal charges against acts of omission and commission. <br /><br />It is noteworthy that Union Water Resources Department Secretary, in a letter to the Bihar Irrigation Secretary on September 24, 2008 has questioned the locus standi of the judicial commission. The letter read: “The Kosi agreement is a bilateral agreement between two sovereign states, India and Nepal, and Bihar is not a party to either 1954 or the 1966 agreement.”<br /><br />Water and Power Consultation Services (WAPCOS), a central government’s public sector undertaking has provided technical inputs to the Bihar government on possible ways to plug the breach at Kusaha in Nepal. <br /><br />Participants included victims of embankments who expressed their anguish at the Delhi, Kathmandu and Patna centric deliberations and decision making. They called for a movement against Kosi High Dam, embankments and changing the current course of Kosi. <br /><br />Amid news reports that Kosi's course will be restored by December 15 and the breach would be plugged by March 31, 2009 citing Kosi Breach Closure Advisory Technical Committee chairman Nilendu Sanyal and Ganga Flood Control Commission chairman R C Jha on 14 October, 2008 to finalise modalities on plugging the breach, some participants were opposed to the repair of the breach in Kusaha. Government must hear the views of these people before undertaking repair works.<br /><br />Meanwhile, central government has sanctioned Rs 40 crore for the project and Bihar Cabinet has sanctioned Rs 197 crore. Bihar Water Resources Minister Bijendra Yadav has said tenders for the breach closure have been invited and bidding will take place after October 21.<br /><br />Kosi is an international river and all interventions must show utmost sensitivity that does not bring a bad name to our country. The onus is the central government to avoid a situation which makes our country a laughing stock for mismanagement of rivers.<br /><br />It emerged from the discussions that a list of "what not to do in Kosi basin" must be prepared before relying on the suggestions of retired and tired officials like Nilendu Sanyal and his ilk. Post-retirement enlightenment of engineers has more to do with their own rehabilitation less to do with kosi victims welfare. <br /><br />People of Kosi basin are victims of development and the arrogance of governmental knowledge that are used to scare common people into silence and submission by their declarations such as "I Know the facts". <br /><br />From K L Rao, Kanwar Sen, K N Lal to Nilendu Sanyal all of them gave flood control solutions...people in Kosi basin are victims of their solution.<br /><br />Dr Mishra explained why Kosi has been flowing at a level higher than its adjoining mainland. The reduced cross-section of the river due to embankments was expected to facilitate the dredging of its bed. Instead, the Kosi offloaded silt into the river and raised the level of its bed. That the Kosi is among one of the highest silt-laden rivers in the country makes matters worse. Had the river been free to meander, it would have deposited fertile silt, collected from the slopes of Mount Everest and Kanchenjunga, across the plains of north Bihar. But that was not to be, as most of the silt carried over the years lies trapped between river banks, reducing the stream flow on the one hand and making the embankments vulnerable to breach on the other. <br /><br />He also revisited historical records and official documents arguing that floods caused by this river are not man-made, they are devil-made. Devils being the nexus between politician-engineer-contractors that feeds on the status quo.<br /><br />Participants included Himanshu Thakkar, Sudhirendar Sharma, Gopal Krishna, Arvind Chaudhary, Kuber Nath Lal, K P Kesari, R K Singh, S K Sinha, Ram Chandra Khan, Shaibal Gupta, PP Ghosh, Rakesh Bhatt, Vijayji, Shivanand Bhai, C P Sinha, C Uday Bhaskar, V N Sharma, RK Sinha, A K Verma, N Sharma, B Singh, Chandrashekhar, T Prasad, Kavindra Pandey, Prem Kumar Verma, Raj Ballabh and several others.<br /><br />Kosi is synonymous with the history, culture of not only Mithila but whole of the Indian sub-continent. One cannot think of the Indian sub-continent without thinking about Ramayana (Sita) and Mahabharata (Karna). Ramayana and Mahabharata cannot be even imagined in the absence of Mithila. The structural solutions have already distorted the landscape of the Kosi-Mithila region, Kosi High Dam would turn out to be a monument of foolishness for generations to come. Like the villains of embankment proposal, all the kosi high dam proponents must be identified and dealt with by something like a Kosi Sansad. <br /><br />The proposal to raise a 269-meter-high dam in Sunakhambi Khola on the Sapta Kosi river, 5 km north of Barahachhetra temple in Sunsari district appeared to be an unsound proposition of people who are caught in a time warp. Proposed "Sapta Kosi Multi Purpose Project" claims to irrigate 68,450 hectares in Nepal and provide remedy for drought-prone areas measuring 1,520,000 hectares in India. It is claimed that alongwith irrigation and flood control, about 3,500 MW of electrical power would also be generated from water stored in the 269-meter-high reservoir.<br /><br />According to a preliminary impact study, the proposed high dam will displace 75,000 people from about 79 Village Development Committees (VDCs) in nine districts of Nepal alone. About 111 settlements in the 79 VDCs, sprawling over the banks of the Sun Kosi, Tamor, and Arun rivers, will be totally submerged, while 47 settlements will face partial submergence, and 138 will become fractionally submerged. <br /><br />Opinions available in public domain say, "If the dam is going to cause such upheaval, can the crops produced from the 68,450 hectares of irrigated land in Nepal compensate for this huge loss?" argued the bimonthly magazine, Pro Public/Good Governance, in its report. Estimated losses in the North Bihar are yet to be ascertained. <br /><br />Elsewhere on the web Vinay Jha, Editor, Mithila Times argues that the kosi High Dam is actually a population-control plan by the government; a dam break in an earthquake prone zone will eradicate poverty in a vast region by eradicating the poor. Narural flow of rivers and natural habitats must not be tampered with, which we must maintain if we want life to exist on Earth. Instead of a gigantic dam, what we need is a gigantic network of very small scale water management schemes, including a vast network of small dams in Himalayas. But Indian officials can never think or manage such schemes. <br /><br />Earlier, the meeting of the Indo-Nepal Joint Committee on Water Resources in Kathmandu on October 2, 2008 agreed to expedite work on preparation of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) on Saptkosi High Dam on the Kosi. <br />Both sides reiterated their commitment to expediting the work on preparation of the DPR of Saptkosi High Dam project during the meeting which concluded on Wednesday in Kathmandu. Nepal assured full administrative support and security to Indian engineers.<br /><br />After the breach, on August 18-19, 2008 Nepal government had said that Kosi treaty is a "historic blunder" but Nepal government's inconsistent and ambiguous position now on the Kosi High Dam proposal based on the same treaty must be exposed in the Nepali parliament and media. <br /><br />In order to save Kosi region from an ecological and human disaster, Nepali and Indian legislators must take a categorical position based on a referendum on Kosi.<br /><br />Gopal Krishna<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Solution to floods: New paradigm needed</span><br /><br />Md Khalequzzaman, The Daily Star, 2008-10-11<br />Bangladesh<br /><br />Following the recent devastating floods in North Bihar, the Deputy Chairman of the Indian Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwali said in an interview, “the flood caused by the Kosi in Bihar underlies the need for storing water by building dams or barrages. Since the issue involves Nepal, vigorous diplomatic efforts are needed.” He also said that he did not see any other visible solution. It is a sorry state of affairs that the Planning Commission of India is still trapped within a failed paradigm of engineering and structural solution to a natural process, namely flooding. How long will it take for our policy makers to realize that flooding is a natural process, and it can't be "managed”? <br /><br />We cannot defy the nature, we need to live in harmony with it. A recent fact finding report for the Kosi floods of 2008, prepared by a civil society organization under the leadership of Dr. Sudhir Sharma, Dr. Dinesh Mishra, and Gopal Krishna of India, highlighted that although India has built over 3000 km of embankments in Bihar over the last few decades, the flooding propensity has increased by 2.5 times during the same time period, not to mention that embankments failed during each major flooding event. Embankments provide a false sense of security to people living behind them. It has been proved time and again that no matter how strong the embankments are, and no matter who builds them (US, India, the Netherlands, China, Bangladesh, you just name it) they are destined to fail.<br /><br />Every time there is a flood in Bihar or Assam, the people living downstream in Bangladesh get worried, since it take only a few days for flood waters in upstream regions to roll downstream in Bangladesh. However, the Kosi flood of 2008 revealed an interesting fact. Although parts of Bangladesh are located directly downstream of the Kosi confluence with the Ganges (called Padma in Bangladesh), no major floods occurred in those downstream areas following the deluge in North Bihar in mid August. Analyses of the data for river monitoring stations in the Padma at Pankha, which is located downstream of Farakka, showed that the stage of the river did not rise significantly following the floods in Bihar. The question that begs answer is why the flood in Bihar did not contribute to increased flow in the Padma in Bangladesh? <br /><br />The answer lies in the underlying causes of flooding in Bihar. The breaching of embankment on the Kosi river allowed the flood waters to spread over the floodplains in North Bihar, resulting in reduced velocity and volume of flood waters that enter the Padma in Bangladesh. In addition, at the time of breaching, the flow of Kosi was only 1.4 lakh cusec, which is not an unusual flow during the monsoon period. The flood in Bihar was an unexpected phenomenon for the people living behind the embankments since they had a false sense of security. If the embankments were absent on either sides of the Kosi, the flow that caused a deluge in northern districts of Bihar probably would be an ordinary “two-day- flood” that would spread over wider floodplain areas in Nepal and Bihar, and would not cause any misery for select group of people who happened to be in the wrong place (downstream of where the embankments broke in Nepal) at the wrong time (August 18 and afterwards).<br /><br />Despite an increase in investments for construction of embankments and other flood control measures, the intensity and magnitude of flooding have increased substantially in all co-riparian countries (Nepal, India and Bangladesh) within the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin in recent decades. All countries in the GBM basin are looking for solutions to flood damage to their economy and lives. However, so far there has been a minimum amount of involvement among co-riparian nations to tackle this common problem. All countries are working in isolation or in a bilateral manner to solve a problem that requires participation by all stakeholders living in the GBM basin. India, being the largest power and strategically located, needs to provide leadership role among the co-riparian nations (China, Nepal, Bhutan, India, and Bangladesh) and devise an integrated water resources management (IWRM) plan for the GBM basin. <br /><br />The IWRM plan will require adaptation of a new paradigm that embraces an ecological approach to reducing flood damage through implementation of best management practices in land-uses in the entire basin (from the source to mouth of these mighty rivers). All people living in the floodplain of the GBM basin need to find a way to reduce land erosion and deforestation. Should they build on the floodplains, they need to adapt new construction standards that facilitate floodwaters flow under their houses, or be prepared to evacuate to higher grounds during high flow events. Drainage congestion due to urbanization and other land-use changes that increase surface run-off and reduce infiltration is another reason for increased flooding in the region. Widening of natural drainage network through dredging in proportion to the amount of urbanization, and increasing efficiency of storm sewage system in urban centers will be essential to avoid water-logging and flooding. <br /><br />All stakeholders living in a watershed area, regardless of their political boundaries -- need to work together, there are no other alternatives. The planner and decision makers in the basin countries can hide their face in the sand hoping that flooding will not occur again, but such wishful thinking will not stop floods or reduce damage to economy and the environment. Humans will have to make room for rivers to spread during flooding, because floodplains have been an integral part of any natural rivers for millions of years; whereas human invasion to floodplains and interference with the natural flow have been a relatively new phenomenon. Every time humans decide to change natural forces to meet their needs, it becomes a duty for them to study the laws of nature and abide by them. Sooner we realize that humans cannot defy the nature, we can only live in harmony with it, better it will be for the humanity, because natural forces will always outweigh any human endeavour. Rivers flowing over to floodplains is one of such natural laws.<br /><br />Md Khalequzzaman is a member of the Bangla-desh Environment Network (BEN)mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-11102179048145763642008-09-23T23:53:00.000-07:002008-09-23T23:56:38.534-07:00The Worst Is Yet To Come<strong><br />Why, after 60 years of band-aid remedies for the Kosi, is there no lasting<br />solution yet, asks GOPAL KRISHNA</strong><br /><br />ON AUGUST 19, 2008, the chairman of the Expert Committee on the Implementation<br />of recommendations of Rashtriya Barh Ayog, R Rangachari said, “It is my<br />impression that not much has been done to implement the suggestions made by the<br />committee’s report.” Rangachari was on the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Flood<br />Control in 2004.<br /><br />The National Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the Government of India made a<br />solemn pledge to the people of the country in 2004 to undertake “Long-pending<br />schemes in specific states that have national significance, like flood control<br />and drainage in North Bihar.” Despite acknowledging the problem, it is shocking<br />that neither the Central nor Bihar Government conducts any survey to assess the<br />effect of flood control measures on the socio-economic conditions of society.<br /><br />On August 20, 2008, after the breach in the embankment at Kusaha in the Kosi<br />region, Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal `Prachanda’, took stock of<br />the post-calamity situation in the Kosi region and said “Kosi agreement was a<br />historic blunder. The people are suffering due to this”. The agreement had led<br />to the construction of embankments and proposals for a high dam.<br /><br />Following an aerial survey of the flood affected areas of Bihar, the Indian<br />Prime Minister on August 28, 2008, termed the flood crisis as “a national<br />calamity”. More than four years have passed since the Indian Prime Minister made<br />the promise in the CMP. Now, in August 2008 he declared, “A high-level team<br />would be set up to coordinate matters with the Government of Nepal.” He also<br />promised protective structures and technical assistance to state government to<br />prevent further deterioration in the embankments. Such dangling of carrots and<br />providing band-aid remedies are horribly insincere and it has been going on for<br />over 60 years.<br /><br />Bihar’s floods in August 2008 caused the eighth breach in the embankments.<br />According to the Bihar Government’s own reports, last year 48 lakh people in 22<br />districts were in need of assistance due to floods. Clearly, it is not the<br />extent, but the unpredictable intensity of the crisis that makes it a<br />catastrophe. The primary function of floodwater is to drain out excess water. It<br />has not been allowed to perform its functions due to engineering interventions.<br /><br />Hundreds of reports prepared by Commissions of all ilks are gathering dust. At<br />most, they become election campaign tools. The Commission should recommend<br />fixing charges of criminal neglect against the members of the Kosi High-Level<br />Committee, who waited for the calamity despite having information that could<br />have led to timely evacuation of the people.<br /><br />The drainage problem has failed to alter the policy regime of the country that<br />favours structural solutions regardless of the natural drainage it may impede.<br />Proposals like a high dam on the Kosi are as good as jumping from the frying pan<br />into the fire, if the experience with embankments is anything to go by. Even<br />when one chooses to ignore the changing morphology of the river, the estimated<br />lifespan of a dam and embankment being 25 and 37 years respectively, underlines<br />the transitory nature of the technocentric interventions. The Union Ministry of<br />Water Resources misled the Rajya Sabha on March 11, 2008 claiming, “Government<br />has taken various steps in the direction of water management to stop the flood<br />in north Bihar coming from the rivers of Nepal.” There has been no significant<br />shift in the way the Kosi issue was perceived in the 1950s and in 2008.<br /><br />The issue of the Kosi High Dam, first raised in 1948, has been sold to the<br />victims as one of the ‘permanent’ solutions to recurring floods. Ironically,<br />embankments as temporary solutions have become reasonably permanent whereas the<br />‘permanent’ solution has remained elusive. What is ‘permanent’ and how permanent<br />is ‘permanence’? It must be acknowledged now that there is a condemnable<br />insincerity in proposing multi-purpose high dams for flood control, because the<br />dams are proposed to tap the hydropower potential. Is it not clear that when the<br />multipurpose — flood control, irrigation and power — dam is talked about, the<br />real motive of the proposal in question is ignored? Clearly, political parties<br />hold a stake in such power projects that make them little concernend with the<br />masses struggling to remain afloat. A few days ago, Nepalese Prime Minister,<br />Prachanda, conveyed his affirmation for the hydel power project in a meeting<br />with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at a lunch hosted by JD(U) leader Sharad<br />Yadav.<br /><br />THERE IS a compelling logic behind seeking immediate review of the Indo- Nepal<br />Kosi Treaty that created the rationale for embankments and dams. Continuing with<br />it would amount to flogging a dead horse. The congestion in North Bihar and<br />Nepal is a problem of permanent water-logging that has remained overlooked for<br />several decades. Floods, earthquakes, hurricanes or tsunamis cannot be<br />controlled. But the catastrophe they cause can be predicted, anticipated and<br />prevented. Drainage of the river must remain sacrosanct, besides timely<br />evacuation of human and animal population and the establishment of robust public<br />health systems.<br /><br />Given its distinct geo-morphological features and complicated hydrological<br />characters, the Kosi is one of the Himalayan rivers that has yet to be<br />understood in its entirety. It is high time that policy makers gave up their<br />outdated ‘conquest over nature’ paradigm. We have to learn to live with the<br />floods, only this time, in far more readiness.<br /><br />(Gopal Krishna is a member of the fact finding misson on the Kosi in Bihar and<br />Nepal)<br /><br />From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 38, Dated Sept 27, 2008mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-4329358551292472402008-09-23T23:50:00.000-07:002008-09-23T23:53:05.823-07:00Of Deluge, Candles and Matchboxesby Dinesh Kumar Mishra<br /><br />The foundation stone of the Kosi Project was laid on January 14, 1955 amidst fanfare, jubilation and victory. Dr. Shrikrishna Sinha, thgen Chief Minister of Bihar, laid the foundation stone near Bhutaha village close to Nirmali, in Saharsa (now Supaul) district with the chanting of mantras by Pt. Mahabir Jha of Jhitki village and shouting of slogans like 'Aadhi Roti Khayengein, Kosi Bandh Banaayengein.' (We will eat only half a chapati but we will surely build the Kosi embankments). A majority of people lost the other half of the bread too on the 18th August 2008 when the Kosi embankment breached on that day.<br /><br />Col. Townsend of the US Army while deliberating in a seminar organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers to discuss the Mississippi floods of 1927 had said that even the best designed and carefully constructed embankments remain at the mercy of burrowing animals like rats, foxes, muskrats who can create a hole in the finest levee that has been devised, which if not closed within a few moments will ensure its destruction. The Mississippi River of the United States broke loose in 1927 inundating an area of 51,200 sq. kilometer and damaging property to an estimated extent of two hundred million to a billion dollars. The breaches drove nearly three quarters of a million people from their homes and six hundred thousand of them were dependant on Red Cross. The wealth and power of the United States enabled much to be done for the sufferers, still they suffered. He further added a 'careless supervisor and dark nights' to the list destroyers of embankments. His observations remain valid till date as the Kosi comes out of its shackles in Kusaha in Nepal some 13 kilometers upstream of the Kosi Barrage. All the eight breaches that have occurred so far can be brought under these categories.<br /><br />Col. Townsend gave benefit of doubt to the planners and engineers when he prefixed 'best designed and carefully constructed' adjectives to the embankments. The Kosi has breached its embankment eighth time and it is for the first time that the 'disaster' has generated so much of interest. These embankments are spaced at an average distance of 9 to 10 kilometers below the barrage with a maximum width of 16 kilometres between Kisunipatti and Bhaptiahi and minimum width of nearly 3 kilometres at the barrage itself. The spacing of the embankments is only 8 kilometres at the tail end, between Baluaha Ghat and Ghonghepur. In Nepal portion the spacing between them is restricted to between 3 to 6 kilometers. Common sense suggests that the spacing between the embankments should increase as the river advances further as more and more streams join the river from western side. This simple common sense was kicked around when these embankments were constructed in late 1950s. There were 304 villages with a population of 192,000 (1951 census) going to be trapped between the embankments and each one of them was trying to be located outside the embankments. Later the embankments were extended and 380 villages of Bihar and 34 villages of Nepal came within them. Their current population is nearly 1.2 million. The village locations were fixed and it was the embankment on either side of the river that could be moved. So did it happen. Now the embankment alignment is a caricature of what it was designed, if there was any design.<br /><br />Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Teng Tse Hui discussing the floods in the Hwang Ho had once said in 1955 that according to historical records, there have been inundations and breaches on 1500 or more occasions on the lower reaches of the river and there were 26 important changes of course, nine of them major…..The terrible floods of 1933 caused more than 50 breaches of the dykes and brought disaster to more than 11,000sq. km. Over 3,640,000 people were affected and over 18,000 killed. Property worth some 230 million Yuans was lost. In 1938, Chiang Kai Shek Government opened the dykes on the south bank of the river at Huayuan Kou near Cheng Chow in Honan province. This led to a major change in the course of the river affecting 54,000 sq. km. with a population of 12,500,000 and 890,000 people died….In a hundred years, from 1855 till 1955, the dykes had breached on 200 occasions. According to an on the spot survey in the river bed in lower reaches was found to be rising by one to ten centimeters every year in the middle of this century. In some cases the existing river bank was found even ten meters higher than the surrounding country level. Such rapid silting cannot be dealt with simply by piling up and reinforcing dykes. In a sense, higher and stronger the dykes, the quicker is the silt deposited because it has no way of getting out. The Kosi embankments were constructed citing the wonderful performance of these two rivers.<br /><br />Had Col. Townsend been living today, he must have amended his statement saying that the embankments could be ill-conceived, ill-designed and poorly constructed too. Capt. G.F. Hall, former Chief Engineer of Bihar was of the opinion that the embankments can only postpone the day of retribution and will be a store of disaster for the future generation. A status paper prepared by Government of Bihar in 2003 suggests that those who subscribe to such views are the people of colonial mindset.<br /><br />The 'nationalist' embankment builders had a last laugh when they succeeded in bringing Dr. Rajendra Prasad, then President of India' to Bihar between 17th to 22nd October 1954 and made him request the people to participate in the 'yagna' of nation building by constructing the Kosi embankments. His views in the Patna Flood Conference (1937) were diagonally opposite to what he was made to say in 1954. One can imagine the stress the President might have undergone during that trip of his home state of Bihar.<br /><br />Embankments prevent a river from overflowing its banks during floods but they also prevent the entry of floodwater. This leads to a major problem as the embanked river is no longer able to fulfill its primary function – draining out excess water. With the tributaries prevented from discharging into the river and accumulated rainwater finding no way out, the surrounding areas quickly become flooded. The situation is aggravated by seepage from under the embankments. The areas outside the levees remain waterlogged for months after the rainy season because this water has no way of flowing out to the sea. Theoretically, sluice gates located at these junctions should solve the problem but, in practice, such gates quickly become useless; as the bed level of the main river rises above the surrounding land, operating the gates lets water out instead of allowing outside water in. When the sluice gates have failed, the only option left is to also embank the tributary. This results, then, in water being locked up between the embankments. Moreover, no embankment has yet been built or can be built in future that will not breach. When a breach occurs, there is a deluge. This is what happened at Kusaha this year on the 18th August 2008.<br /><br />Proponents of embankments have tried to rationalize the jacketing of rivers thus: Forcing the same quantity of water through a narrow area, as happens in case of an embanked river, increase the water velocity thereby increasing its eroding capacity. The increased velocity of water dredges the river bottom and transports the sediment out preventing the rise of riverbed levels, increasing the carrying capacity of the river and reducing the extent of flooding. These were the arguments put forward by engineers in independent India when they resorted to massive embanking of rivers in the Ganga and the Brahmaputra basin. Unfortunately, there has been little evidence to date that this theory is actually being substantiated anywhere on Indian rivers. The technical debate, however, continues at that level.<br /><br />At the field level in the flooded areas of Bihar, there is a continuing debate on polythene sheets, rice, vegetables, salt, candle and match-boxes etc. How strategic is this deflection of debate that the people discuss keep discussing about sattu (ground gram), chura (flattened rice) candles and matchboxes. This is what precisely the politicians want and if they are not brought to the real issues of dealing with the sediments, floodwaters, accountability and an informed debate; the event would simply pass of as the earlier ones.mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-54234706658331194602008-09-22T00:34:00.000-07:002008-09-22T00:35:39.538-07:00Kosi’s chilling history: No lessons ever learntKosi’s chilling history: No lessons ever learnt<br /><br />Inder Malhotra<br /><br />WAY BACK in 1953, I had the privilege of accompanying Jawaharlal Nehru to Bihar. In those days, within the country, the Prime Minister travelled by an IAF Dakota. Even so, he decided to increase the number of journalists in his party from two to six, the additional four being foreigners, in equal strength from the two power blocs. The cause of the visit was intensely grim and he obviously wanted the outside world to witness it. Kosi, then called Bihar’s "river of sorrow", now renamed "river of misery", had wrought havoc — though it would have paled in comparison with this year’s catastrophic floods.<br /><br />For four days, by plane, rail and car, Nehru visited as much of the ravaged areas as possible, offering solace to the sufferers and issuing terse instructions to officials in charge of rescue, relief and resettlement of those whose worldly possessions had been washed away. On his way back to Delhi, he told us that basically the tragedy was a natural disaster about which nothing could have been done. But, he hastened to add, that man’s contribution to nature’s fury, in terms of lack of imagination, competence and even compassion, together with lackadaisical action, was "more than considerable." He also said that since Kosi flowed from Nepal into India, the two countries would take steps jointly to control the floods.<br /><br />Judging by what the luckless seven districts of the state have gone through since August 18, it seems that little has changed in 55 years. Or else there would not have been the plethora of complaints about the "tardiness" and "inadequacy" of the governmental and administrative response to a tragedy of huge magnitude. This despite the fact that between 1953 and the start of 2008 there have been several devastating floods caused by the same wayward river.<br /><br />According to several reliable reports, neither Patna nor New Delhi were fully aware of the flood’s frightening dimensions. At the Centre, precious days were wasted in the mistaken belief that the recently-established Disaster Management Board would be able to deal with the problem. Only when the error became manifest was the Army called in and naval boats and divers mobilised. Even then, the relief effort was far from satisfactory. There was a constant lament about the shortage of boats. The other side of the same coin was that in several cases, families precariously perched on the roofs of their flooded huts, simply refused evacuation.<br /><br />Most people may have forgotten that during the Emergency there was a terrible flooding of a coalmine at Chasnala, also in Bihar, in which a large number of miners had to fight for their survival in the deluge. The country did not have a pump powerful enough to draw out water from that depth. Eventually, the Soviet Union flew out one, and many lives were saved. Surely, India does not lack motorboats except that they are spread out at myriad places. Could they not have been requisitioned and flown to the submerged region? The story goes that at the height of the tragedy, some in New Delhi were planning to buy motor-engines to fit on locally available boats.<br /><br />This depressing state of affairs was aggravated by the apparently deathless blame game. That between the Union and the state government — the former accusing the ministry in Patna of "ignoring the warnings" and the latter accusing the former of failing to provide "timely help" — can be treated as an inescapable part of the Indian system. Far more destructive is the blame game between this country and Nepal.<br /><br />Ramaswamy R. Iyer, a former Union water resources secretary and an assiduous scholar of water-related problems, has summed up the situation succinctly, if also rather mildly. "The India-Nepal relationship," he says, "has been badly mismanaged on both sides. Ham-handedness and insensitivity on India’s part, and excessive touchiness and readiness to misunderstand on Nepal’s part, have combined to create a convoluted and volatile relationship which resists repair." This should explain why the 1954 Agreement on Kosi and the 1960 one on Gandak continue to be a source of resentment in Nepal even though both agreements were later amended to meet Nepali concerns. To make matters worse, the crucial Mahakali Agreement remains a dead letter to this day. No wonder, Mr Ramaswamy wants to "wipe the slate clean and start afresh." It is to be hoped that South Block and Nepal’s new Republican government share this approach. From this point of view, the visit to Delhi of Nepali Prime Minister Prachanda is timely.<br /><br />Interestingly, despite the exchange of acerbic and heated rhetoric between Nepal and India, there is conspicuous agreement between the water experts in both countries. For instance, Nepal’s Deepak Gyawati fully agrees with Mr Ramaswamy and several other Indians that the Kosi Barrage, badly breached by gushing waters, should never have been built, and that embankments built to control the flow of Kosi have done more "harm than good". On these highly technical matters I can offer no opinion except that the government must examine them expeditiously and having taken decisions ensure that these are implemented more earnestly than has been the case so far.<br /><br />Some have pertinently drawn comparisons between the admirable efficiency with which all agencies concerned in Tamil Nadu coped with the tsunami disaster of 2004 and the wailing and whining that has greeted the manner in which Kosi’s challenge has been met in Bihar. A retired civil servant commented that in Tamil Nadu, during the tsunami crisis, collectors of all affected districts waded through waste-deep water every day. He doubts if anything comparable happened in Bihar that was once among the best administered states but is now among the worst.<br /><br />Remarkably, it was a Bihar civil servant who said that a precise code exists since the British days according to which it is the bounden duty of district authorities to strengthen the embankments before every monsoon but nobody pays it any heed. However, why blame collectors of Madhepura and other Bihar districts when the much-pampered Municipal Corporation of Delhi miserably fails to clean up the drains before monsoon and lets the nation’s capital to be waterlogged year after year?<br /><br />The Asian Age, Sept 18, 2008mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-22096585117645461902008-09-17T05:53:00.000-07:002008-09-17T06:00:00.524-07:00Kosi High Dam will only bring great disasters<span style="font-style:italic;">Drainage Crisis of North Bihar & Nepal Remains Unattended</span><br /><br />New Delhi/17/09/2008: All talk about seeking review of Kosi agreement that created the rationale for embankments and dams on the Kosi river seems like empty rhetoric. The Nepalese prime minister who has reportedly said that he favoured the idea of setting up a high dam on the river Kosi (though it doesn't appear on the Joint Press Statement), at a meeting with Bihar chief minister at meeting hosted by President of JD (U) in Delhi on September 16, 2008. Leaders from Nepal and India have agreed to set up a new mechanism headed by the water resources secretaries of both countries to discuss issues related to flood control, strengthening the embankments and water management.<br /><br />This is a welcome step provided it is credible, open and independent review of the experience of the past treaty over the last five decades. It is only through such a review in a participatory, democratic way that contours of future steps emerge. Any talk of big dams in absence of this seems like vested interests pushing a high cost project for reasons other than merits of the project, which is the situation today.<br /><br />The Kosi agreement that was signed in 1954 was amended in 1966 to address Nepal's concerns. According to the treaty, the repair and maintenance of the embankment was India's responsibility. "It is clear that the embankment breached on Aug 18, due to the criminal neglect of those who were responsible at Govt of India and Bihar for the proper upkeep of the embankment. Govt of India has yet to set up an enquiry as to who is responsible for the worst ever flood disaster that Kosi basin in Nepal is facing today. Jumping to push high dam on Kosi, is an invitation to even greater disaster and the new Nepali government seems to be walking into that trap".<br /><br />"The proposed Kosi High dam is in a highly geologically unstable and earth quake prone area - a recipe for disaster in the waiting. Besides the inherent dangers, there is also a growing evidence of dam-induced seismicity that is being completely overlooked. The proposed dam (even if we consider the highest proposed height) would silt up sooner than 40 years, according to government's own reports. The silt from it cannot be released, as that silt would only end up again in the Kosi embankment and in the downstream Farakka, which would be an invitation to even greater disaster of Ganga bypassing the Farakka, already waiting to happen.,<br /><br />"The rulers will have people believe that completing the projects (although a dam will take about 20 years for completion) especially a dam) tame the Kosi and solve the flood problem. It is being suggested to the Nepal Prime Minister that the Saptakosi high dam project besides Sunkosi diversion scheme and the Kamla dam project at a combined estimated cost of Rs. 38,000 crore would address the crisis in Bihar and Nepal. These claims need to be summarily rejected." <br /><br />It is noteworthy that the proposed dam is supposed to be for multiple purposes (irrigation, power-generation, flood-control, etc), and there is an in built conflict in-built into such projects. Flood-control would require the intended space in the reservoir to be kept vacant for accommodating flood-waters, whereas irrigation or power-generation would require the reservoir to be as full as possible; and as the latter are gainful activities in an economic sense, they are apt to prevail over flood-control. If the space meant for accommodating floods is not available when the flood comes, the gates will have to be opened in the interest of the safety of the dam, and the downstream area might experience a greater flood than it would have done if the dam had never been built. This has happened in the past. In fact experience of Surat in 2006, of west Medinipur in W Bengal and Lakhimpur in Assam in June this year show that in fact flood disasters can be caused by wrong operation of large dams, the those quilty never get punished.<br /><br />The Kosi High Dam proposal measures against the following facts:<br /><br />1. The National Flood Commission, 1980, had noted: "The flood problem being more acute in the basins of rivers originating from the Himalayas, the reservoirs for flood moderation have to be sited in the Himalayan region, where there are complex problems to be dealt with in putting up large dams due to geological, seismic and topographical constraints. Because of narrow valleys, capacities of reservoirs on Himalayan rivers are not very large. Also, the rivers carry very large silt charge. The factors limit the economic life of the reservoirs, which, in turn, affects the economic feasibility of the project."<br /><br />2. The idea of 269-metre Kosi dam was first mooted in 1937 and has been projected to have a lifespan of no more than 37 years, owing to about 90 million cubic meters of silt being carried by the river each year. Thanks to faster-than-expected silting of the reservoir of the proposed dam, neither will it produce the promised power nor provide intended irrigation benefits. The learned public representative must know that the existing East Bank Kosi canal is heavily silted and delivers just 7 per cent of its irrigation potential. <br /><br />3. While the proposal has conveniently ignored the issue of displacement and rehabilitation of over 75,000 Nepalese, the populist nature of the appeal discounts the fact that it will not be before next 20 years that the proposed dam will actually get built at a whopping cost of over Rs 50,000 crore. The flood plains of Kosi have immediate problems at hand, created and caused by the embankments that need to be addressed. North Bihar needs sustainable solutions and not technocratic interventions, which cannot guarantee protection from floods<br /><br />"In the context of the proposed dam, it must be remembered that it is the same area where earthquake-measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale hit Nepal/Bihar in 1934. The real crisis of North Bihar is not floods but drainage, which the UPA's Common Minimum Programme acknowledged. But did you hear anyone talk about responding to the drainage crisis, which has rightly been diagnosed as the real problem,<br /><br />What we need to do urgently is to institutionalise participatory governance in the Kosi basin, so that people in whose name all this is being pushed have a role. What is claimed to be solutions today are certain to be problem tomorrow, as is clear from the experience of Kosi embankment. Kosi and its people will not allow more of such faulty prescriptions. Kosi belongs to the ecosystem and all of society. The river must be allowed to perform its role in maintaining a natural evolutionary balance and continuing with its land building work. <br /><br />For Details Contact: Dinesh Kumar Mishra: Mb-09431303360, Sudhirendar Sharma: Mb-9868384744, Himanshu Thakkar: Mb-9968242798, Gopal Krishna: Mb-9818089660mediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-71685201248449994582008-09-15T10:38:00.000-07:002008-09-15T10:40:55.174-07:00कोसी को बांधा नहीं जा सकतापिछले कई सालों से न सिर्फ केन्द्र सरकार ने बल्कि बिहार सरकार ने भी बाढ़ कार्यवाही योजना का गलत निर्धारण किया है। सन 1954 से जब नेपाल इस मामले में एक पक्ष बना है तबसे लगातार पूरी जिम्मेदारी नेपाल पर थोपना काफी आसान हो गया है। तथ्यान्वेषण दल को यह देखकर अचम्भा हुआ कि न तो केन्द्र सरकार और न ही बिहार सरकार ने यह आकलन करने के लिए कोई सर्वेक्षण किया है कि बाढ़ नियंत्रण उपायों का समाज के समाजिक आर्थिक परिस्थिति पर क्या प्रभाव पड़ा है। यही स्थिति नेपाल में भी है।<br /><br />तथ्यान्वेषण दल का यह मानना है कि मौजूदा समस्या का मूल कारण तटबंध ही नहीं है। दल इस स्थिति के हल के लिए निश्चित नीति निर्णय चाहता है। हालांकि जिसे गैरकानूनी माना जाता है, लेकिन पानी में फंसे लोग अपने आस-पास जमा पानी को निकालने के लिए तटबंध को तोड़ने का सहारा लेते रहते हैं। इसके पक्ष में सामान्य सोच यह है कि तटबंधों को तोड़ने से कोई अनचाही परिस्थिति नहीं पैदा होती है।<br /><br />भारत में तटबंधों को तोड़ने के प्रमाण भी हैं। दामोदर नदी में 1854 में बने 32 किमी लम्बे तटबंध को 1869 में ढहा दिया गया। ब्रिटिश सरकार को बहुत जल्दी यह महसूस हो गया कि इससे बाढ़ नियंत्रण नहीं होता, तटबंधों से उपजाऊ जमीने डूब में जा रही थीं, जिसके लिए उन्हें मुआवजा देने को बाध्य होना पड़ता था। तथ्यान्वेषण दल के लेखक श्री सुधीरेन्द्र शर्मा के अनुसार, ''तटबंध टुटने के कारण मुआवजा देने की सबसे पहली घटना 1896 की है जब पश्चिम बंगाल के बर्दवान जिले में किसानों को 60,000 रुपये मुआवजा दिया गया।''<br /><br />हॉलैंड में राइन और मियूस नदी को बांधने में असफल रहने पर वहां के जलविज्ञानियों ने सुरक्षा का एक खास तरीका अपनाया है जिसे 'नदी के उन्मुक्त प्रवाह की जगह' कहा जाता है। इस नई आवधारणा न सिर्फ जानकारी युक्त चर्चा की जरूरत है बल्कि यह व्यापक राजनैतिक समर्थन पर आधारित है। ऐसे उपायों पर उत्तर बिहार के निवासियों से चर्चा करके निष्कर्ष पर पहुंचने की जरूरत है, लेकिन इसके लिए केन्द्र सरकार और बिहार सरकार के बीच आपसी सहमति की जरूरत है।<br /><br />जब तक दोषी अधिकारियों एवं संस्थाओं को जवाबदेह नहीं बनाया जाएगा तब तक न सिर्फ वे पिछली गलतियां दोहराई जाएंगी बल्कि नई अवधारणाओं और रणनीतियों को लागू करना भी मुश्किल होगा। यह बात जल संसाधन से जुड़ी संस्थाओं के मूल, क्रियाकलाप, और कानूनों से साफ होती है। वे सभी बड़ी परियोजनाओं के नियोजन, डिजाइन और क्रियान्वयन के लिए ही बनी हैं। यह बात भी साफ है कि वे भागीदारी युक्त या पारदर्शी संस्थाओं के प्रति इच्छुक भी नहीं हैं। ये संस्थाएं पूरी नदी घाटी की आवश्यकताओं, संसाधनों और प्राथमिकताओं को शामिल करने में असफल रही हैं। इस तरह ''मौजूदा संस्थाओं को पूरी तरह नये सिरे से खंगालने (परिभाषित) की जरूरत है'', ऐसा कहना है कोसी के तथ्यान्वेषण रिपोर्ट के सह-लेखक गोपाल कृष्ण का।<br /><br />ऐसे मामलों में किसी न्यायिक या प्रशासनिक जांच से आपराधिक जिम्मेदारी नहीं तय होती है, क्योंकि ऐसे आयोगों और समितियों के निष्कर्ष तो निश्चित ही होते हैं। यह तो किसी परिणाम पर न पहुंचने की नियमित प्रक्रिया है। हालांकि, न्यायमूर्ति राजेश बालिया आयोग के विचारार्थ विषय में कोसी उच्च स्तरीय समिति के बारे में स्पष्ट किया गया है, लेकिन उसकी विशेषताओं पर ध्यान देने की जरूरत है। लेकिन ऐसे आयोगों की सबसे बड़ी सीमा यह होती है कि ये समस्या के लिए जिम्मेदार मौजूदा संस्थाओं से न तो सवाल करती हैं और न तो कर सकती हैं। आयोगों द्वारा तैयार ऐसी सैकड़ों रिपोर्टों में धूल पड़ रही हैं और उन्हें दीमक चाट रहे हैं। इनमें से ज्यादातर का उपयोग चुनावों में प्रचार के लिए होता है। इस तरह, सबकी परिणति एक जैसी होती है।<br /><br />आइए इस आपदा पर भारतीय प्रधानमंत्री, बिहार के प्रधानमंत्री और बिहार के मुख्यमंत्री के बयान पर एक नजर डालते हैं। कोसी क्षेत्र के कुशहा में तटबंध में कटाव आने के बाद बिहार के मुख्यमंत्री ने 19 अगस्त 2008 को भारत के विदेश मंत्री से निवेदन किया कि वे कोसी समझौते के अनुसार नेपाल में कटाव के मरम्मत के लिए नेपाल सरकार को कानून व्यवस्था सुनिश्चित करने के लिए सम्पर्क करें।<br /><br />नेपाल के सुंसारी जिले के लौकाही पुलिस थाना में 16 अगस्त 2008 उन असामाजिक तत्वों के खिलाफ एक प्राथमिकी दर्ज कराई गई है जिनके द्वारा ऐसी परिस्थिति उत्पन्न की गई कि सभी इंजिनियरों को वहां से भाग जाना पड़ा।<br /><br />20 अगस्त 2008 को नेपाल के प्रधानमंत्री ने स्थिति का जायजा लेते हुए कहा कि, ''कोसी समझौता एक भयंकर ऐतिहासिक भूल थी'' और ''इसे लोग पीड़ित हैं''। समझौते की वजह से तटबंधों का निर्माण हुआ है और बड़े बाध का प्रस्ताव है। भारत के प्रधानमंत्री ने 28 अगस्त 2008 को बाढ़ग्रस्त इलाकों का हवाई सर्वेक्षण करने के बाद इस समस्या को ''राष्ट्रीय आपदा'' घोषित किया और राहत और पुनर्वास के लिए तत्काल 1000 करोड़ रुपये जारी करने की भी घोषणा की।<br /><br />यह ध्यान देने योग्य है कि भारत सरकार ने 2004 में घोषित अपने राष्ट्रीय न्यूनतम सहमति कार्यक्रम के तहत उत्तरी बिहार के बाढ़ नियंत्रण, ड्रेनेज आदि योजनाओं को पूरा करने का संकल्प लिया था (जिसके लिए नेपाल सरकार की सहमति भी जरूरी है)। उस वादे को किए हुए चार साल हो गए लेकिन अब फिर अगस्त 2008 में उन्होंने कहा कि, ''नेपाल सरकार से समन्वय के लिए वे एक उच्च स्तरीय दल गठित करेंगे''। उन्होंने यह भी वादा किया कि तटबंध के मरम्मत, रखरखाव व सुरक्षा के लिए वे बिहार सरकार को आवश्यक तकनीकी सहायता भी उपलब्ध करएंगे। इस तरह की आश्वासन वाली बातें तो पिछले 60 सालों से की जा रहीं है। इससे पहले भारत सरकार ने नेपाल के जल संसाधन मंत्रालय के अंतर्गत जल आधारित आपदा निवारण विभाग के निवेदन पर 7 जुलाई 2008 को नदियों के तटबंध के मरम्मत व विकास के लिए अनुदान दिया था।<br /><br />इन सबसे साफ है कि जमीनी स्तर पर जो भी बदलाव आए, ज्यादातर बाते वैसे ही रहती हैं। तटबंध के मरम्मत का कार्य जारी है और तात्कालिक हल के तौर पर उसके मार्च 2009 तक पूरा हो जाने की उम्मीद है। ऐसे समय में उत्तारी बिहार और नेपाल में कोसी के बाढ़ क्षेत्र का दौरा करके लौटे तथ्यान्वेषण दल की मांग है कि इस पूरी आपदा पर और खासकर उत्तरी बिहार में कोसी घाटी के ड्रेनेज (जलनिकासी) पर एक श्वेत पत्र जारी किया जाय। ताकि मौजूदा नीतियों के कारण बंद हुई ड्रेनेज समस्या को हल किया जा सके। इससे समस्या और बाढ़ प्रवण क्षत्र में बढ़ोतरी करने वाली तथाकथित विपरीत हल की परिस्थतियों का पता लगना चाहिए।<br /><br />इस रिपोर्ट का कहना है कि बांध, तटबंध और उनकी मरम्मत जैसे बाढ़ नियंत्रण के उपायों से सिर्फ तात्कालिक राहत मिल सकती है। ऐसी परिस्थिति में नदी के बहाव क्षेत्र में बदलाव के कारकों का सूक्ष्म स्तर पर दीर्घकालीक और सावधानीपूर्वक अध्ययन की जरूरत है। यहां यह स्पष्ट करने की जरूरत है कि तटबंध के कटाव को बंद कर दने से ही समस्या का स्थायी हल नहीं हो जाएगा। परिवर्तनकारी जलविज्ञान को नजरअंदाज करने पर बांध और तटबंध की उम्र 25 साल होती है और बदलावों को ध्यान दते हुए तकनीकी सुधार करते हुए 37 साल होती है।<br /><br />कोसी तटबंध में अब तक का यह आठवां कटाव है, जिसमें नेपाल के चार पंचायत, उत्तरी बिहार के 4 जिले सहरसा, सुपौल, मधेपुरा और अररिया इस बाढ़ से बुरी तरह प्रभावित हुए हैं। इनके अलावा 12 अन्य जिले पुर्णिया, खगड़िया, मुजफ्फरपुर, पश्चिमी चंपारण, सारण, शेखपुरा, वैशाली, बेगुसराय, पटना, और नालंदा भी इस बाढ़ से प्रभावित हुए हैं। एक अनुमान के अनुसार करीब 35 लाख लोग इस बाढ़ से प्रभावित हुए हैं। बिहार सरकार के रिपोर्टों के अनुसार पिछले साल 22 जिलों में 48 लाख लोगों को बाढ़ के कारण सहायता की जरूरत थी। इससे साफ है कि घटना के पैमाने का अनुमान न कर पाने से इतनी बड़ी आपदा आई। बाढ़ के पानी का सबसे पहला कार्य यह होता है कि अतिरिक्त पानी की निकासी करे। लेकिन इंजिनियरिंग हस्तक्षेप के करण ऐसा नहीं हो पाया।<br /><br />अब तक न ऐसा कोई तटबंध बना है और न भविष्य में बनेगा जिसमें कटाव न आए। कोसी नदी के तटबंध में कटाव और पिछले नेपाली और भारत सरकार द्वारा बड़े बांध का प्रस्ताव के तर्क में इस बात पर ध्यान नहीं दिया गया कि कोसी को बांधा नहीं जा सकता।<br /><br />अपने विशिष्ट भौगोलिक परिस्थितियों और जटिल जलविज्ञान के विशेषताओं के कारण कोसी एक ऐसी नदी है जिसके बारे में अभी व्यापक रूप से समझा जाना बाकी है। यह सही समय है कि नीति निर्माता ''प्रकृति पर नियंत्रण'' करने के अपनी पुरानी अवधारणा का त्याग करें और यह माने कि हमें बाढ़ के साथ जीना सीखना होगा।<br /><br />विस्तृत जानकारी के लिए सम्पर्क करें।<br />सुधीरेन्द्र शर्मा : 9868384744, ईमेल : sudhirendar@vsnl.net<br />गोपाल कृष्ण : 9818089660, ईमेल : krishnagreen@gmail.commediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3036159452720590922.post-22128354573801780112008-09-12T05:32:00.000-07:002008-09-12T05:46:01.008-07:00Kosi Deluge: The Worst is Yet to Come<span style="font-weight:bold;">Press Release </span><br /> <br />Kosi Deluge: The Worst is Yet to Come<br /><br />New Delhi/ 12/9/2008: Not only has Delhi got its flood action plan consistently wrong over the years, so has Patna. Consequently, it becomes convenient to transfer the entire blame on Kathmandu that was party to a mistake when it was first conceived in 1954. The Fact Finding Mission was aghast to observe that neither central nor Bihar government `conducts any survey to assess the effect of flood control measures on socio-economic condition of the society'. The same holds true for Nepal as well.<br /><br />The Fact Finding Mission Report "Kosi Deluge: The Worst is Still to Come", asserts that embankments are the root cause of the present crises. It seeks firm policy decisions to remedy the situation. Though considered unlawful, trapped communities have time and again engaged in creating artificial breaches for draining their accumulated water from their surroundings. The general perception favours removal of embankments provided the act of demolishing does not create undesired conditions. <br />"There is a precedence of embankment demolition in India. The embankments created along a length of 32 kilometers on river Damodar in 1854 were demolished in the year 1869. The British had soon realized that far from controlling floods, the embankments were submerging fertile lands for which the colonial rulers were forced to provide compensation. The first-ever compensation of Rs 60,000 on account of submergence due to embankment failure was given to a farmer in 1896 in then Bardwan district," says Dr Sudhirendar Sharma, author, the Fact Finding Report on Kosi.<br /><br />After their failure to tame rivers Rhine and Meuse, the Dutch hydrocracy has now adopted spatial flood protection measures called `room for the river'. The new approach not only warrants informed public debate but is based on broad political support. It is measures like these that need to be discussed and negotiated with communities in north Bihar, but not before the political stables in Patna (and in Delhi) get cleansed of their misconceptions! <br /><br />"Unless the erring officials and institutions are held accountable, not only will the folly of the past get repeated but fresh approaches and strategies would be hard to implement. It is clear from the origin, functions and constitution of the institutions dealing with water resources. They are all structured for planning, design and implementation of large projects. It is also clear that they do not even intend to be participation oriented or open bodies. These institutions have failed to encompass the needs, resources and priorities of whole river basin. Therefore, a complete overhaul of the existing institutions is a dire necessity,' argues Gopal Krishna, co-author of the Fact Finding Report on Kosi. <br /><br />Any judicial or executive probe that does not fix criminal liability is suspect because the fate such commissions and committees are a foregone conclusion. It is a routine exercise of no consequence. However, since the terms of reference of Justice Rajesh Balia Commission are clearly focused on Kosi High-Level Committee, a multilateral body, it merits some attention. But the biggest limitation of any such Commission is that it does not and cannot question the institutional status quo that is guilty of perpetuating the crisis. Hundreds of such reports prepared by Commissions of all ilk gather dust and are moth eaten. At most they become campaign tools during elections. Thus, one does all the running with all of one's might just to stay where one has always been.<br /><br />A look at the statements of the Indian Prime Minister, the Nepalese Prime Minister and the Bihar Chief Minister demonstrates how they remain dedicated to the technocentric approaches that caused the calamity in the first place. <br /><br />After the breach in the embankment at Kusaha in the Kosi region, Bihar Chief Minister requested India's External Affairs Minister on 19 August, 2008 to approach Nepal <br />Government to ensure law and order as per Kosi Agreement in order to repair the breach that took place in Nepal. On 16 August, 2008 an FIR was lodged in Laukahi Police Station in Sunsari district of Nepal against anti-social elements who created such as situation that all the engineers had to run away from their pots. <br />On 20 August, 2008, Nepal Minister took stock of the post-calamity situation in the Kosi region and said "Koshi agreement was a historic blunder" and "People are suffering due to this agreement". The agreement led to the construction of embankments and proposals for a high dam. <br /><br />Following an aerial survey of the flood affected areas of Bihar by the Indian Prime Minister on August 28, 2008, termed the flood crisis as "a national calamity" and announced immediate release of Rupees 1000 crores to the Government of Bihar for rescue and relief. <br /><br />It is noteworthy that National Common Minimum Programme of the Government of India announced in 2004 made a solemn pledge to the people of the country to undertake "Long-pending schemes in specific states that have national significance, like …flood control and drainage in North Bihar (that requires cooperation with Nepal as well)." More than four years have passed since the Indian Prime Minister made the promise and now in August 2008 he has declared, "A high-level team would be set up to coordinate matters with the Government of Nepal." He also promised "necessary material and technical assistance to the State Government to prevent further deterioration in the embankments and protective structures." Such dangling of carrots and providing Band Aid remedies are manifestly insincere and it has been going on for over 60 years. <br />Earlier, Indian government has provided grant assistance to Nepal for the construction of river embankments and emergent works in Nepal in response to the request made by the Department of Water Induced Disaster Prevention, Ministry of Water Resources, Government of Nepal on 7 July, 2008. <br /><br />All this clearly demonstrates how although the more things change on the ground, the more they remain the same. While the repairs works are underway and will most likely be completed by March 2009 as an immediate protection measure, the Fact Finding Mission on Kosi that visited the flood affected parts of North Bihar and Nepal demands a white paper on the current deluge and drainage in the Kosi basin in particular and North Bihar & Nepal in general in order to address the drainage congestion crisis that has resulted from current policies. It must diagnose the problem and the adverse consequences of the so-called solutions that have caused huge increase in the flood prone area. <br /><br />The report argues that while flood control measures like dams, embankments and their repairs can provide temporary respite. It is a phenomenon that needs long term careful micro level study of the factors causing shift in the course of the river. There has to be an acknowledgement that even if one fills the breach in the dam/embankment the problem does not get solved forever. Even when one chooses to ignore changing morphology, the estimated lifespan of a dam and embankment is 25 years and 37 years respectively underlines the transitory nature of technocentric interventions. <br /><br />Following the eighth breach in th embankments, besides 4 panchayats in Nepal, four North Bihar districts- Saharsa, Supaul, Madhepura and Araria- got worst affected by floods. In addition to these twelve districts -- Purnia, Katihar, Khagaria, Muzaffarpur, West Champaran, Saran, Sheikhpura, Vaishali, Begusarai, Bhagalpur, Patna and Nalanda are affected by the floods as well. An estimated 35 lakh people have suffered due to the flood crisis. As per Bihar government own reports, last year 48 lakh people in 22 districts were in need of assistance due to flood. Clearly, it is not the extent but the unpredictable intensity of the crisis that makes it a catastrophe. The primary function of floodwater is to drain out excess water. It has not been allowed to perform its functions due to engineering interventions. The same fate awaits Bagmati and Mahananda region.<br /><br />No embankment has yet been built or can be built in future that will not breach. The collapse of the Kosi river embankment and the rationale for proposed high dams was created by the previous Nepalese and Indian governments that did not realize that Kosi cannot be tamed. <br /><br />Given its distinct geo-morphological features and complicated hydrological characters, the Kosi is one of the Himalayan rivers that has yet to be understood in its entirety. It is high time policy makers gave up their outdated "conquest over nature" paradigm and acknowledge `we shall have to learn to live with floods'.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">For Details: </span><br />Sudhirendar Sharma:9868384744, E-mail: sudhirendar@vsnl.net<br />Gopal Krishna: 9818089660, E-mail: krishnagreen@gmail.commediavigilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17801809794795753601noreply@blogger.com0