Flood Dispatch-2
Patna Dated 31st March 2005.

The state has succeeded in getting its budget ratifies by the centre and the process of tendering is nearing completion. Most of the repairs should have been completed by now and the time is really short for the repair works to be carried out and the people are apprehending huge flood losses in the ensuing flood season.

There are also the reports that the water level has gone down badly in the hand pumps and the people are leaving their villages in search of water. Those living in towns are getting water far short of their needs. South Bihar districts adjoining Jharkhand are bearing the brunt of the water shortages this year in the month of March.

There is no popular government in the state and those who are supposed to take oath to serve the people of Bihar are still busy grouping themselves. Reports appearing in the press suggest that the people are happy that they are not being ‘served’ by their masters. Bihar is going the UP way where the political scene is torn between three parties SP, BSP and BJP. Lalu Ji is reported to have said that he is coming back after the ‘tiffin time’ is over. He might as well do that.

It reminds me of 1965 when Dr Ram Subhag Singh was the Railway Minister at the centre and the Kamla embankments breached at many places because of non-completion of the construction of the railway bridge at Jhanjharpur and the narrow passage of water provided through that bridge. The duet between Dr Ram Subhag Singh and Mahesh Prasad Singh (then Irrigation Minister of Bihar), both belonging to the same party and both from Bihar, was really memorable. While the people suffered immense damages, the trading of charges between the two holding each other responsible for the deluge, entertained others.  It seems, after a lapse of forty years, Bihar is heading for the repeat performance of 1965.


Dinesh Mishra

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 S R Jha wrote :
>
>Very good plan of action. Pl. let me know if I can do something to make it a success. I do agree that the area you have selected for the Pad Yatra is the worst affected. But, a substantial portion of Madhubani district is also affected badly by floods. Anyway, the problems are similar and it may not be possible to cover such a large area in such a short span of time.
>
>Sudip R Jha
>School of Sciences
>IGNOU, New Delhi
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
> From: vagish Jha [mailto:vagishkj@...]
>Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 11:31 AM
>To: Bihar Chintan
>Subject: [biharchintan] Pre Flood Yatra
>
>
>
>Dear Mishra Ji & Friends,
>
>The concerns of Shri D K Mishra are very genuine. Let me add to it some more.
>
>To make an assessment of the Pre flood (or should we say
>pre-waterlogging) situation in the Koshi area, recently I spent one
>week in a remote village on the banks of Koshi along with another
>journalist friend of Bihar Chintan Shri Chandrashekharam.  (A small
>reportage enclosed)
>
>After we returned, we had a meeting at Khagaria of some 50 odd people
>belonging to Voluntary organisations and some respectatable people of
>Civil Society to discuss the issue. We felt that most of us wait for
>the annual floods to come. many of our NGO friends have already drawn
>plans for relief work for the ensuing flood. But what we need to be
>concerned about is some measures that we could take before the flood
>to meet some basic and essential needs of those who are going to be
>affected. There are some very basic needs that could be addressed
>including (1) Constructing temporary community latrines out of bamboo
>(2) Make some arrangement of drinking water by a) providing hand pumps
>at the embankment where they take shelter for three months or so b)
>arrange for some additional pipes to raise the head of existing hand
>pumps in the waterlogged area, keep adequate quantities of Halogen
>tablets for cleaning of water or any such other method (3) make
>arrangements for the fodder to the cattle and (4) make some kind of
>hospital on boat with a qualified doctor and some basic medicines
>holding regular OPD in one village which is centrally located in a
>cluster. Snake-bite medicines and other SOS medicines can be kept as
>first aid kit in each village . These basic support will go a long way
>in making the sufferings of people much less. As the flood recedes, we
>need good amount of disinfectant such as bleaching powder in those
>areas. They altogether cost very little and if all those who work in
>these areas could pool even some personal contribution it could be
>organised easily. The question, however, is are we prepared for such a
>'tedious and non-glamourous' initiative?
>
>My personal feeling is that we must think of a viable alternative to
>our dependence on 'external' support. We can't even depend on
>government support as it would come on 15th hour, if at all it comes
>and in whatever measure it comes.  The basic question here is that
>have our villages lost their own internal energies to take care of
>their basic needs even? Can't we harness the internal resources and
>work out an independent mechanism? I am not proposing that we should
>leave the government alone or should not make them accountable for
>delegating their responsibilities. We must. For example, we are about
>to hear from the district ot local administration that "all the
>preperations for dealing with flood are done". We must ask them to
>spell out in clear terms as to what are the preparations they have
>done? Similarly, there is a need to do a very hard and consistant
>lobbying with polititians to educate them about the dynamics and
>reality of flood so that they get out of the 'Nepal Syndrome', which
>essentially is an 'ostrich alibi' and nothing else.
>
>But leaving apart these bigger quetions we must do some modest
>beginning at the local level with local resources. What could be the
>actual modality of such an initiative? To understand this in a better
>way some of us are planning to undertake Pad Yatra in the area. We
>felt that Katyayani Sthan (between Mansi and Saharsa near Dhamara Ghat
>Railway Station), Kusheshwar Sthan and Sigheswar Sthan makes a
>triangle which is worse affected by the water logging. So we are
>planning to undertake first of our Pad yatra between Kusheshwar Sthan
>to Katyayani sthan towards the mid of the month of May. Later we will
>go from Kusheshwar to Sigheshwar also. What we intend to do is to
>interact with the villagers and work out some initiatives that they
>themselves could take before the flood comes. We would like to invite
>those interested in Botany, zoology, geology, medicine, environment,
>soil and so on to come with us. We plan to launch on this yatra
>without any money with us. We will depend upon the villagers to take
>care of us (and we are confident that they will) as we take shelter in
>a village and have meetings there. If we get good support from frinds
>we can come up with an authentic report which will help us understand
>the situation more closely and lobby with various people about some
>initiatives that can be taken locally.
>
>Subsequently, we could think of holding a meeting at Patna involving
>NGOs, polititians, bureaucrats, members of civil society to draw
>attention to the issue of flood in early June.
>
>Your suggestions and response would be great help in materialising the
>Bihar Chintan initiative, as always.
>
>Thanks and regards,
>
>Vagish K Jha
>
>----- Original Message -----
> From: Dinesh Kumar Mishra
>To: biharchintan@...
>Cc: Kumar,Dalip ; mathewc@... ; sushant@... ;
>ctddsf ; gpf@... ; anilg@... ;
>samta_khagaria@... ; mansoormozaffar@... ;
>nelabh@...
>Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 8:25 AM
>Subject: [biharchintan] Bihar Floods
>
>  Bihar Flood Dispatch-1
>19th March 2005
>
>Bihar will be exposed to the fury of rivers this year and the setting
>is getting complete because of non-formation of the Government. Water
>Resources Department of the state had identified 280 schemes to be
>taken up on to prevent breaches in the embankments. As a customary,
>all the works on the Kosi embankments are completed before March every
>year. All other maintenance and repair works are completed by the end
>of May. Nothing has been done so far because the decisions are delayed
>and the files are shuttling between various sections of the Department
>of Water Resources, in the absence of a popular Government. A decision
>to allocate funds and finalize works could not be taken in the last
>meeting of the state cabinet and now, there is no cabinet. Unless
>something is done on the emergent basis, the state would be in trouble
>in months to come as breaches in the embankments would put people to
>lot of trouble.
>
>It is an irony of fate that if the embankments do not breach, the
>drainage of the country would be jeopardized and the people would
>suffer acute waterlogging. We would soon listen, in observance of the
>annual ritual, that negotiations are on with Nepal and the
>Barahkshetra Dam would be built at the earliest and all the problem of
>the state would be solved.
>
>Dinesh Mishra
>
>
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