Bihar floods can't be wished away, but here's what Nitish can do

The onset of monsoon is not a matter of joy for lakhs of people who have to face devastating floods every year in Bihar. This year, too, floods have wreaked havoc in 12 districts of the state, rendering scores of people homeless and causing massive destruction of property all over. More than 150 people have died in different parts of the state so far.

Unfortunately, nothing is unusual about it. Floods have emerged as a deadly scourge for the hapless people who have to encounter it year after year in Bihar. In many areas in the Kosi belt, local residents consider it to be part of their inescapable destiny, as the state government is unable to do anything beyond setting up makeshift relief camps in the affected areas.

Most of the time, floods in the state are caused due to heavy rains in the catchment areas of Nepal with which Bihar shares the international border. Flood management experts have invariably called for constructing an embankment in the Himalayan nation to help mitigate the problems of people in Bihar. But the state government cannot do anything about a bilateral issue between the two sovereign nations. This can be sorted out only through talks at the highest level.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar also holds the construction of Farakka dam in West Bengal responsible for the floods in Bihar. Demanding the removal of the dam, he has also called upon the Centre to formulate a national silt management policy at the earliest.

Asserting that the floods in many districts in Bihar are caused due to heavy siltation in the river Ganga, he believes that demotion of the dam will help ease the problem to a great extent.

However, it is unlikely that the Centre will give its go-ahead to the removal of Farakka dam in near future. And any alternate plan to de-silt a river like Ganga through dredging will take many years. As far as construction of an embankment in Nepal is concerned, the bilateral talks have been going on for years.

As a result, Bihar does not have any reason to become optimistic about any long-term solution to its biggest problem. Hence, both its government and people will have to learn to cope with the annual floods.

Ironically, Bihar has been experiencing floods even during poor monsoons. At times, half of the state experiences drought while the remaining part remains submerged under water. In fact, its worst flood in the recent memory – the Kosi catastrophe in 2008 – was not the outcome of either excessive rainfall during monsoon or heavy siltation in any riverbed.

It was caused by the breach of an embankment due to poor management at Kushha in Nepal.

The massive loss of human lives and property at that time had prompted the erstwhile Manmohan Singh government to declare it a national calamity. Massive plans were also made both by the Centre and the state government to come up with a foolproof flood management policy to preempt such a disaster but nothing ameliorated the condition of the people living in the floodprone areas.

When Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad recently talked about the "good fortune" of the flood-hit people to have the water of the holy Ganga at their doorstep, he sounded least aware of the trauma of living under such circumstances.

Given the topography of the region, the state government cannot do much about the situation at the moment. But the least it can do is to provide timely succour to the people displaced by the floods. It can also set in place an effective mechanism to evict people from the flood-prone zones before the monsoon and provide them alternate accommodation for two-three months every year to minimise the loss of human and cattle lives.

Since it is a phenomenon that cannot be wished away, the government would do well to elaborate arrangements to look after the flood victims before any long-term solution is found.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)