The Sinking Foundation of Task Force Report (2005) -1
Comments on the Report of the Task Force For Flood Management /Erosion Control have been awaited since long and here are some details.
The report that was submitted to the Government of India in December 2004 and no one ever talked about the same, at least, in Bihar. While the floods are knocking at the doorstep, the repairs of the embankments in Bihar is still incomplete and, as the reports suggest, only 40 per cent of the work has been completed so far.
It was only an through an article written by former Minister of Agriculture at the Center, Chaturanan Mishra (Dinik Hindustan 22nd March 2005) about the recommendations of the report that the people in Bihar came to know that the report has been submitted. This was followed by some stray reports in the media suggesting the submission of the report. Unfortunately, the data on which this report is based are wrong and misleading. This is true for Bihar, it may be true for other states too.
It was reported that the flood affected area of the state had touched a worst ever figure of 49.86 lakh hectares, in 2004. This year’s flood was restricted to 20 districts of north Bihar (barring Siwan and Saran) whose total area is 48.94 LH. The Disaster Management Department of Bihar was continuously mentioning in its reports, till almost the end of August, that 49.86 lakh hectares of land is flooded in north Bihar. This would mean that the flooded area was more than the actual area of the concerned districts. When attention was drawn to this flaw in a local newspaper (Dainik Hindustan, Patna dated 26th August 2004) that the flood affected area of the state suddenly slumped down to 23.49 lakh hectares (Report- Department of Disaster Management, dated 1st September 2004 onwards).
Despite this reduction of the flood affected area, the memorandum submitted to the Central Team by the Bihar State contained the flood affected area of the state as 49.86 lakh hectares and computation of losses and the requests made for relief must have been based on these inflated figures. It is amazing that none of the three concerned departments like the Disaster Management, the Water Resources and the Department of Statistics ever bothered to look into the discrepancy. If the mistake is deliberate, it smacks of conspiracy and if it is a slip, it speaks volumes about the casual way the issues that hit the public are handled in the country from Junior Engineer to Task Force level. Disturbing feature of the entire episode is that the even the Central Team that visited Bihar (starting 13th September 2004) after the floods, did not locate the mistake. The discrepancy went un-noticed in the Prime Minister’s Office too. And now the Task Force also reports the same. Needless to say that the Task Force represents the galaxy of Indian engineers in the field of water.
The report further says that maximum number of 1153 flood deaths in the state occurred in 1993 which again is wrong. The maximum death toll in Bihar was recorded in 1987 when it was put at 1399. Similarly, maximum number of people affected during floods in any year was 286.62 lakhs, again in 1987, and not 24.489 million which the report wants people to believe. Since this has happened with Bihar, there is every reason to believe that it must have happened in case of the other states too. Actually, the entire effort was to highlight the 2004 flood and present the data that suited this purpose.
The report refers to the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of the UPA Government at more than one occasion. One only hopes that the Government would take notice of the shortcomings of the report and more so when it hopes to get cooperation from the public. The repot talks about the international partners like Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and China etc but does not talk about Interlinking of Rivers. Did UPA formally shunned the Riverlinking Programme and that too before December 2004. Or else, the Task Force knows what it should say and what it should avoid.
Dinesh Kumar Mishra
Convenor-Barh Mukti Abhiyan
C-7 Vatika Green City PO MGMC
Dimna Road Jamshedpur 831018
Ph: 0657-2650844 Mob: 09431303360
E-mail mishrdadk@...
Police seized 7 new cars from kingpin in Jan, all acquired after the flood. One of them was bought from Sadhu Yadav
SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY
Posted online: Sunday, May 01, 2005 at 0146 hours IST
MADHEPUR (MADHUBANI) APRIL 30: At least a chunk of the money siphoned off from Bihar’s flood relief funds can be traced inside a shed, just outside the Lakhnour police station, in a remote corner of Madhubani.
Parked here are seven almost-new cars, costing around Rs 50 lakh, seized by the police from Santosh Kumar Jha and his associates just before the Assembly elections.
At least five of them—a Toyota Qualis, a Tavera, a Tata Sumo Victa, an Ambassador and a Tempo Trax Cruiser—were brand new and just out of the showroom. They do not even have number plates or registration numbers.
A sixth one, a white Ambassador in the name of Santosh Kumar Jha has a VIP number plate of BR-28C-0001. The police station officer, Dinesh Prasad told The Indian Express that during the interrogation, Jha said that he had bought the car from Sadhu Yadav, RJD MP and Rabri Devi’s brother. Sadhu Yadav has said that he did not know Jha.
Most of these cars were purchased by Santosh Kumar Jha—in his name and also in the name of his close relatives—from September 2004 when flood relief funds from then Patna DM Gautam Goswami’s office began to flow into his account. Documents show that the Tavera was purchased on September 10 by Jha from Gemini Mobiles Pvt. Ltd. in Lucknow.
The seven cars were seized from Jha and 28 of his associates on January 26, 2005 when they came to Madhepur from Patna to show off their money and muscle power after he bagged the LJP ticket.
But the model code of conduct was already in place and the Lakhnour police stopped the motorcade, arrested all the 29 and seized the cars. At least six of Jha’s associates were carrying weapons. Santosh Jha was not carrying any weapon but had cash of Rs.1.25 lakh with him. When asked by the police, Jha reportedly said that the money had been withdrawn from a bank. But neither Jha, nor his local representative R.K. Maharaj, has been able to produce the bank passbook to show the withdrawal. So, the money too is lying with the police station, says Dinesh Prasad.
Earlier on January 26, the Jhanjharpur police station had recorded a case against Jha and his associates for visiting the house of Rupnarayan Jha, the RJD candidate, and threatening him. As per a complaint lodged by a relative of Rupnarayan Jha, Santosh Jha and his men threatened Rupnarayan with dire consequences if he did not withdraw from the contest. He was arrested from Lakhnour and the cars seized. He, however, was allowed to file his nomination papers from custody and was released on February 12, three days before the first phase of polling. His 28 associates continued to be in jail till the first week of March.
When contacted, Divisional commissioner for Darbhanga K.P. Ramaiya, under whose jurisdiction falls Madhubani, said that he was aware of the seizure of Santosh Kumar Jha’s fleet of cars. ‘‘But it is a criminal matter and should be looked after by the district administration.’’
Asked if the purchases could be related to the money siphoned off flood relief funds, Ramaiya said: ‘‘Yes, it is a reflection, an ostensible display of money and wealth amassed by him. But apart from an administrative inquiry, such display of wealth should also attract inquiry by the Income Tax department,’’ he added.
Talking to The Indian Express in Patna on Thursday, Jha denied there was any scam. ‘‘In fact, I chipped in at the right moment and provided relief to lakhs of people,’’ he said. He also refused to talk about the car he reportedly bought from Sadhu Yadav.
THE SCAM SO FAR
Seven exclusive reports in this newspaper that exposed Bihar Flood Scam: • APRIL 24: The Sunday Express breaks the Bihar Flood Scam, exposes how 90 per cent of relief money released by Patna’s ex-DM Gautam Goswami flowed into a black hole • APRIL 25: Officials cooked up bills to divert relief money: one truck, for instance, is shown as having set out with sattu but delivered polythene • APRIL 26: On paper, Goswami paid Rs 17 cr to Bihar State Small Industries Corporation (BSSIC) but money went into account of Baba Satya Sai Industries (BSSI) • APRIL 27: Cash flowed from ex-DM to Santosh Kumar Jha, associate of Sadhu Yadav, RJD chief Laloo Yadav’s brother-in-law • APRIL 28: Santosh Kumar Jha is a government contractor who flourished under RJD regime • APRIL 29: Jha admits he got Rs 17 crore as advance, says Sadhu is like his own brother • APRIL 30: Records prove that claims made by ex-DM Goswami to highlight his
innocence are baseless
I must add in this connection that scams were taking place ever since 'Relief ' came into existense. It was only last year that the culprits were caught. I must assure you that nothing will happen to these swindlers as they have a chain from Patna to Delhi.
I have a suggections to make here. Since we cannot do a damn to these master swindlers, why not we make use of their expertise in planning the pre-floods preparedness moves togetherwith mitigation during the flood phase. They are the people aware of every nitty gritty about preparation and relief part of the annual event that is flood in Bihar. All that the society needs is to channelize their talents in the right direction.
Best wishes,
Dinesh Mishra
On Wed, 04 May 2005 Vagish wrote :
>
>GRAIN OF TRUTH
> With floods comes the gravy train If panchayats are involved, scams will be that much more difficult to perpetrate
>Yogendra Alagh
>Indian Express, May 5, 2005
>
>Posted online: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 at 0000 hours IST
>
> The 'Bihar flood scam' that the Express has been highlighting, shows the disconnect between policy, governance and knowledge. The flood drill when there is a threat of floods is well known. But if your agenda lies elsewhere, you merrily follow the gravy trail.
>The first thing to note is that floods cannot be avoided. But they can be managed. Both when they occur and through preventive steps. There are two reasons for flood devastation. First, floods are irregular events. Second, flood plains are precisely those areas of great human concentrations because the great rivers were the cradles of civilisation and floods, believe it or not, also bring benefits like giving us life-giving silt and recharging groundwater aquifers. When a river withdraws, crops are grown in its bed. Notice how, when you travel by train in the dry season, how dry river beds are always cultivated. Very few villages with historical memories of floods actually move away from the river bank. But this does not mean that society should not have good ways to manage floods.
>
>As I said, the flood evacuation drill is a known administrative procedure although it is not quite followed in recent times. I remember in the late '80s, Naresh Chandra, then irrigation secretary, conducting one such drill in the Yamuna around Delhi. The law on evacuation and immediate relief is also quite clear. If evidence of diversion of funds on a large scale is available, the violation of rules will not be difficult to establish since flood relief is not quite a new administrative practice, although some leakage is probably there all the time.
>
>Fortunately for UP, Bihar and West Bengal, the Reports of the Ganga Flood Control Commission are available and now also for the northeastern states for the Brahmaputra, based on the work done by A.D. Mohile. In fact, even when flood relief is organised, apart from the immediate steps, some attention should be paid to enduring solutions.
>
>The most popular steps are to build embankments and to ask for the big dams to control rivers upstream. Like all dramatic "solutions", they are only a part of the story if success is to be achieved and sometimes not even a major part. Experts know that river morphology is a complex affair and civil works without a larger understanding of training a river, can go wrong. So the hundreds of crores spent on embankments have not always led to much, even when the money was actually spent and not siphoned away.
>
>In fact, we know by now that the drainage of the river and its flood waters is an important issue. It is known, for example, that faulty land use which results in blocking the drainage of a river or its large tributaries, can cause severe damage. It is therefore important to bring the larger community into confidence when planning flood control. But this is not done because the emphasis will then shift away from civil works and the gravy train.
>
>Another way of managing a flood is to be ready with water bodies which will store the water in the flood, either under the ground or in talaavs. It was in the famous Bangladesh floods when an US presidential committee under Harvard's Roger Reveille calculated that millions of acre feet of water could be stored under the ground in a flood if you pump out the water earlier and prepare the depressions to receive the flood waters.
>
>Dams are important, but with a better understanding of the water rights of people and of the treatment of forest catchments, flood control measures per se are becoming less important. The classic case is the Mekong River Agreement, which provided for the minimum reverse flow of water in the monsoon into the Tonle Sap, a lake in Cambodia in the lower reaches of the river where large populations lived. This meant that the dams upstream, which were earlier designed by the great Indian engineer, Kanwar Sain, had to be re-sized.
>
>In India downstream states like Tamil Nadu steadfastly resist the idea that they are sitting on great reservoirs of groundwater, just like Bangladesh, since they don't want their claims on river waters questioned. Also, the way things are going with Nepal and Bangladesh, big dams will take some time to materialise. These countries need to recognise the potential of working together to transform islands of poverty into islands of prosperity. Bhutan - to take a recent example - is getting to become a developed country by trading in energy.
>
>But, in the mean time, a lot of action is possible if Mani Shankar Aiyar will also get panchayats in the flood plains to adopt a master plan for flood management. If panchayats are involved, scams will be that much more difficult to perpetrate.
>
If panchayats are involved, scams will be that much more difficult to perpetrate
Yogendra Alagh
Indian Express, May 5, 2005The ‘Bihar flood scam’ that the Express has been highlighting, shows the disconnect between policy, governance and knowledge. The flood drill when there is a threat of floods is well known. But if your agenda lies elsewhere, you merrily follow the gravy trail.
The first thing to note is that floods cannot be avoided. But they can be managed. Both when they occur and through preventive steps. There are two reasons for flood devastation. First, floods are irregular events. Second, flood plains are precisely those areas of great human concentrations because the great rivers were the cradles of civilisation and floods, believe it or not, also bring benefits like giving us life-giving silt and recharging groundwater aquifers. When a river withdraws, crops are grown in its bed. Notice how, when you travel by train in the dry season, how dry river beds are always cultivated. Very few villages with historical memories of floods actually move away from the river bank. But this does not mean that society should not have good ways to manage floods.
As I said, the flood evacuation drill is a known administrative procedure although it is not quite followed in recent times. I remember in the late ’80s, Naresh Chandra, then irrigation secretary, conducting one such drill in the Yamuna around Delhi. The law on evacuation and immediate relief is also quite clear. If evidence of diversion of funds on a large scale is available, the violation of rules will not be difficult to establish since flood relief is not quite a new administrative practice, although some leakage is probably there all the time.
Fortunately for UP, Bihar and West Bengal, the Reports of the Ganga Flood Control Commission are available and now also for the northeastern states for the Brahmaputra, based on the work done by A.D. Mohile. In fact, even when flood relief is organised, apart from the immediate steps, some attention should be paid to enduring solutions.
The most popular steps are to build embankments and to ask for the big dams to control rivers upstream. Like all dramatic "solutions", they are only a part of the story if success is to be achieved and sometimes not even a major part. Experts know that river morphology is a complex affair and civil works without a larger understanding of training a river, can go wrong. So the hundreds of crores spent on embankments have not always led to much, even when the money was actually spent and not siphoned away.
In fact, we know by now that the drainage of the river and its flood waters is an important issue. It is known, for example, that faulty land use which results in blocking the drainage of a river or its large tributaries, can cause severe damage. It is therefore important to bring the larger community into confidence when planning flood control. But this is not done because the emphasis will then shift away from civil works and the gravy train.
Another way of managing a flood is to be ready with water bodies which will store the water in the flood, either under the ground or in talaavs. It was in the famous Bangladesh floods when an US presidential committee under Harvard’s Roger Reveille calculated that millions of acre feet of water could be stored under the ground in a flood if you pump out the water earlier and prepare the depressions to receive the flood waters.
Dams are important, but with a better understanding of the water rights of people and of the treatment of forest catchments, flood control measures per se are becoming less important. The classic case is the Mekong River Agreement, which provided for the minimum reverse flow of water in the monsoon into the Tonle Sap, a lake in Cambodia in the lower reaches of the river where large populations lived. This meant that the dams upstream, which were earlier designed by the great Indian engineer, Kanwar Sain, had to be re-sized.
In India downstream states like Tamil Nadu steadfastly resist the idea that they are sitting on great reservoirs of groundwater, just like Bangladesh, since they don’t want their claims on river waters questioned. Also, the way things are going with Nepal and Bangladesh, big dams will take some time to materialise. These countries need to recognise the potential of working together to transform islands of poverty into islands of prosperity. Bhutan — to take a recent example — is getting to become a developed country by trading in energy.
But, in the mean time, a lot of action is possible if Mani Shankar Aiyar will also get panchayats in the flood plains to adopt a master plan for flood management. If panchayats are involved, scams will be that much more difficult to perpetrate.
If panchayats are involved, scams will be that much more difficult to perpetrate
Yogendra Alagh
Indian Express, May 5, 2005
Posted online: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 at 0000 hours IST
The ‘Bihar flood scam’ that the Express has been highlighting, shows the disconnect between policy, governance and knowledge. The flood drill when there is a threat of floods is well known. But if your agenda lies elsewhere, you merrily follow the gravy trail.
The first thing to note is that floods cannot be avoided. But they can be managed. Both when they occur and through preventive steps. There are two reasons for flood devastation. First, floods are irregular events. Second, flood plains are precisely those areas of great human concentrations because the great rivers were the cradles of civilisation and floods, believe it or not, also bring benefits like giving us life-giving silt and recharging groundwater aquifers. When a river withdraws, crops are grown in its bed. Notice how, when you travel by train in the dry season, how dry river beds are always cultivated. Very few villages with historical memories of floods actually move away from the river bank. But this does not mean that society should not have good ways to manage floods.
As I said, the flood evacuation drill is a known administrative procedure although it is not quite followed in recent times. I remember in the late ’80s, Naresh Chandra, then irrigation secretary, conducting one such drill in the Yamuna around Delhi. The law on evacuation and immediate relief is also quite clear. If evidence of diversion of funds on a large scale is available, the violation of rules will not be difficult to establish since flood relief is not quite a new administrative practice, although some leakage is probably there all the time.
Fortunately for UP, Bihar and West Bengal, the Reports of the Ganga Flood Control Commission are available and now also for the northeastern states for the Brahmaputra, based on the work done by A.D. Mohile. In fact, even when flood relief is organised, apart from the immediate steps, some attention should be paid to enduring solutions.
The most popular steps are to build embankments and to ask for the big dams to control rivers upstream. Like all dramatic “solutions”, they are only a part of the story if success is to be achieved and sometimes not even a major part. Experts know that river morphology is a complex affair and civil works without a larger understanding of training a river, can go wrong. So the hundreds of crores spent on embankments have not always led to much, even when the money was actually spent and not siphoned away.
In fact, we know by now that the drainage of the river and its flood waters is an important issue. It is known, for example, that faulty land use which results in blocking the drainage of a river or its large tributaries, can cause severe damage. It is therefore important to bring the larger community into confidence when planning flood control. But this is not done because the emphasis will then shift away from civil works and the gravy train.
Another way of managing a flood is to be ready with water bodies which will store the water in the flood, either under the ground or in talaavs. It was in the famous Bangladesh floods when an US presidential committee under Harvard’s Roger Reveille calculated that millions of acre feet of water could be stored under the ground in a flood if you pump out the water earlier and prepare the depressions to receive the flood waters.
Dams are important, but with a better understanding of the water rights of people and of the treatment of forest catchments, flood control measures per se are becoming less important. The classic case is the Mekong River Agreement, which provided for the minimum reverse flow of water in the monsoon into the Tonle Sap, a lake in Cambodia in the lower reaches of the river where large populations lived. This meant that the dams upstream, which were earlier designed by the great Indian engineer, Kanwar Sain, had to be re-sized.
In India downstream states like Tamil Nadu steadfastly resist the idea that they are sitting on great reservoirs of groundwater, just like Bangladesh, since they don’t want their claims on river waters questioned. Also, the way things are going with Nepal and Bangladesh, big dams will take some time to materialise. These countries need to recognise the potential of working together to transform islands of poverty into islands of prosperity. Bhutan — to take a recent example — is getting to become a developed country by trading in energy.
But, in the mean time, a lot of action is possible if Mani Shankar Aiyar will also get panchayats in the flood plains to adopt a master plan for flood management. If panchayats are involved, scams will be that much more difficult to perpetrate.
Social Justice Pvt Ltd Political entrepreneurs cannot serve the public interest
SAGARIKA GHOSE
Posted online: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 at 0000 hours IST
Sagarika
Ghose Laloo Prasad Yadav, President of Social Justice and Secularism
Pvt Ltd fresh from his 76-seat down-but-not-out showing in the Bihar
assembly elections, is again centrestage. Fresh charges against him in
the fodder scam case, Parliament in uproar, the opposition NDA staging
a boycott demanding the immediate resignation of the chaara chor
Railway Minister, even Atal Bihari Vajpayee galvanised into excited
(though muddled) witticisms.
But Laloo Prasad Yadav provided
another demonstration of his unique selling point. Namely, his secular
brand. Confronted by the CBI charge, he roared he was being attacked by
communalists. Recently, he claimed, when he went to visit injured
passengers of the April 21 Sabarmati Express accident in a Vadodara
hospital, his car was attacked by the RSS and VHP. Not only that,
Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was masterminding a criminal conspiracy to
eliminate him. Laloo at his corporate best. Brand 'Secularism' versus
Brand 'Communalism'. Brand 'Yadav' versus Brand 'Upper Caste Hindu'.
In
this war of brands, a CBI chargesheet is only an occupational hazard of
wealth creation. An inconvenient interference in the business interests
of the House of Yadav where the law is a necessary casualty for those
seeking to demolish centuries of 'elite' dominance. A railway accident
in itself is without value. It is valuable only if it provides yet
another opportunity to market Brand Laloo. After all, a Railway
Minister, obsessed with his own sense of victimhood can't be expected
to weep over the dead bodies of those who belong to other, possibly
privileged castes. The man of the public can't be burdened with public
expectation. In fact, he doesn't represent the public at all. He
represents only his own private business.
Thus 'normal'
ministerial reactions to a railway accident are missing. Decisions to
address, for example, the problem of exhausted, sleepy drivers and
antiquated signal technology. Who can forget the ghastly collision in
Gaisal in 1999. Or the beheaded train hanging from a bridge in Warangal
in 2003. And in Yadav's own reign the collision at Mukerian, Punjab
last December when he famously stopped off to attend an election rally
in Bihar, forgetting that Parliament needed to be told why two trains
had failed to notice that the other was approaching. No, boring things
like track and technology upgradation in the Railways aren't
particularly important for Laloo, beyond the odd khullar initiative.
Why
is the railway using public not important for Laloo? Simply because
matters of national 'public interest' are of limited relevance for the
John D. Rockefeller of the Yadavs. Did John D. Rockefeller care about
the hazards faced by the average American when he was building his
Standard Oil company in late 19th century America using all manner of
deceit and tricks? No, he did not. Similarly as the first OBC
entrepreneur of Bihar (not the first OBC leader, mind you, before him
there was Karpoori Thakur and others) Laloo's energies are elsewhere.
He's building a business, damnit. And so far he's been enormously
successful, his is an astounding rags-to-riches concern. His
stakeholders have become rich. In the utter absence of business
opportunities in Bihar, Laloo's created a huge market for his single
product: caste. Simply because he's always thinking of whether or not
his private company is growing, the 'public' is the last thing on
Laloo's mind. So to hell with the CBI, and the rule of law and
parliamentary behavior and the railway passenger. Laloo's business is
business.
In fact, there are several politicians today who are
not political leaders but political entrepreneurs. Karunanidhi and the
DMK are supposed to be the upholders of the principles of the
anti-upper caste democratic Dravida movement. But in fact the House of
Karunanidhi is a private business where stakeholders are supposed to
enhance the political profitability of the product, namely non-brahmin
caste consciousness. The Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan is
also a private business, headquartered in Hajipur, a rival business to
the House of Yadav but selling the same sort of product, namely caste
and crime. What is Paswan's product differentiator? Dalit
acceptability. Brand Paswan's nearest corporate rival is Brand
Mayawati, a celebrity brand in Indian politics, embellished not just
with the tag 'Dalit' but also with 'woman'. Forget about whether
Mayawati or Paswan actually care about dalits, or women or the Sikh
victims of '84, or the children of the tsunami, or for the fisherfolk
of Kerala. The point is they are brand 'social justice' and that is
what matters. Unfortunately private companies with principles as their
brands are a tragedy for the rest of India.
Political private
companies can't be social movements defined by ideology, democratic
values and national service. Political private companies are scornful
of 'national political life', Parliament or judiciary. For these
private companies, politics is a bypass mechanism, where a ministerial
berth is not about national decisions but a useful tool. A ministerial
berth protects you from going to jail. After all, if the NDA had won in
2004 there is no reason to suppose that Laloo may not have found
himself behind bars. And a ministerial berth gives resources and brute
power. Laloo's not the only example here. Remember how Mamata Banerjee
speedily became minister of coal on the eve of the 2004 polls, so she
could mop up convoys of red-light Ambassadors to sweep grandly into
political rallies in West Bengal? A ministerial berth allows you to
retain product monopoly in the state where (in the inverted pyramid of
present-day politics) Central power is located.
Thus political
entrepreneurs are terrific for their stakeholders but they're not
statesmen. If individual self-aggrandisement is the only motivator,
then the notion of the public or public interest becomes irrelevant;
there is little incentive to take decisions for the public good. If the
meaning and substance of 'social justice' and 'democracy' is lost, if
these terms simply become meaningless advertising jingles of Brand
Laloo and his private company, rather like 'Oye bubbly Oye bubbly' is
for Pepsi, then the day is not far when train accidents will come and
go and the Railway Minister will not even bother to visit the accident
site. ******************************
Officer shows MPs rule book, Laloo books him
BHAVNA VIJ-AURORA
Posted online: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 at 0502 hours IST Updated: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 at 0516 hours IST
Railway
Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav New Delhi, May 3: Railway Minister Laloo
Prasad Yadav today suspended a railway officer for allegedly behaving
rudely with four of his party MPs, including MoS, Communication,
Shakeel Ahmad, who were travelling by the Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani last
week.
Though Laloo did not name the suspended official, sources
confirmed that Additional DRM, Allahabad, A.K. Singh, was at the
receiving end of his ire. And though the move has made his party
colleagues happy, it has not gone down well with railway officials.
They said the Minister was setting a ''dangerous trend'' by listening
only to the version of his party's MPs.
According to railway
officials, a travelling ticket examiner (TTE) on April 29 was
manhandled by the attendants of four RJD MPs — Devender Yadav,
Raghunath Jha, Alok Kumar Mehta and Shakeel Ahmad — in Kanpur, when he
asked for their tickets.
''They just kept saying that they were
MPs and even refused to show any identity card. One of them said he has
lost it (identity card),'' the official said. Beaten up by the MPs'
attendants, the TTE sent a message to Allahabad. As the matter was
sensitive, the ADRM himself came to the station when the train arrived
in Allahabad. ''He asked the MPs for their travelling authority, which
they either did not have, or did not want to show," an official said.
Laloo's
party MPs, however, claimed that they were harassed by rude and drunk
railway officials. Laloo said in the Lok Sabha today that it was a
conspiracy against his party MPs. He alleged that some NDA MPs were
travelling in the adjacent coach, but they were not disturbed.
''I
have suspended an official and ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Misbehaviour by them will not not be tolerated,'' Laloo said after the
issue was raised by RJD's Devendra Yadav. The Minister told the House
that the ''drunk'' official had even got damaging material, including
photographs of the MPs, published in newspapers.
Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said the issue was under his active consideration.
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - IX Indian Express, May 2, 2005 No FIR against scamsters but Bihar books fathers of two shot in relief riots Case against village which came out to protest official connivance in sale of relief supply material
VARGHESE K GEORGE
PATNA,
MAY 1: Not a single FIR has been filed against any official or
contractor involved in the Bihar flood scam though it's been a week
since The Indian Express first reported that at least Rs 17.45 crore,
meant for flood relief last year, was siphoned off from the Patna
District Magistrate's account.
But in Darbhanga, where police
used bullets to quell the fight for flood relief last year, the state
has moved quickly: 61 persons have been charged with rioting, including
two men who have had no time to grieve for sons felled by police
bullets.
Digambar Kanti's son Babloo, 16, and Upinder Kanti's
son Shyam Sunder, 22, were killed when police fired on people
clamouring for relief on August 16, 2004. Seven others were injured in
the firing.
The Kantis have now landed in Patna to join a
protest against inadequate relief work. The protests are still on
because the floods changed lives forever, money meant for relief was
siphoned off and misery multiplied manifold in homes across affected
districts.
''Whatever supplies reached Ujam, our village, was
sold in the local market by the Mukhiya with active connivance of
officials. When officials refused to listen to our complaints, the
entire village collected and blocked road and rail on August 16,''
recalls Digambar.
Around 5 pm that day, says Digambar, SHOs from
three police stations and officials landed there. ''No questions were
asked, the police began firing. When people ran, my son was left
behind. He was caught by the police who shot him behind his ear,''
weeps the man as he shows you a photograph of his son's body.
Upinder
says his son Shyam Sunder was not even part of the protest. ''He had
gone to a PCO to make a call to Mumbai. He wanted to inform his
employers that he was stuck here and would rejoin work a little late.
But the police shot him dead.''
Police also opened fire in
Patepur in Vaishali district, killing a 12-year-old. Riots over relief
also took place in Hasa in Samastipur and Bajitpur in Darbhanga. ******************************* THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART-X Indian Express, May 3, 2005 Contractor diverted flood relief as pre-poll sop for voters in his home and constituency
Bihar Sadhu Yadav attended the launch of organisation Jha floated for 'welfare' months before he got an Assembly ticket SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY Posted online: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 at 0205 hours IST
SANGHI
(MADHUBANI), MAY 2: Madhubani was among the worst-affected districts in
the Bihar floods last year. But there are two blocks in Madhubani,
Phulparas and Ghoghardiha, where you will not find people complaining
about inadequate flood relief work.
Because Santosh Kumar Jha—a
detailed investigation by The Indian Express into the Bihar flood scam
established he was the recipient of the Rs 17.45 crore relief
assistance paid by Patna DM Gautam Goswami from the DM's
account—ensured that 36 panchayats on his home turf remained happy.
Jha,
who calls RJD leader Sadhu Yadav his ''brother'' and sings Goswami's
praises, flooded the two blocks with relief material. His home village
Sanghi was not even flood-hit but supplies kept flowing in. The reason
wasn't far to find.
Months later, he contested the Bihar
elections on Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP ticket from Madhepur in Madhubani.
He turned to the LJP after he was denied a ticket by the RJD under
whose rule he made his pile. Though he didn't win the seat, he still
managed 6,000 plus votes. After the expose, Paswan claimed he had no
idea how Jha got the ticket!
Officials in Madhubani, not willing
to be named, confirm that government relief supplies meant for
distribution were diverted to Jha's area to ''build up a popular
image'' in the run-up to the polls.
Jha's ''flood relief
operations'', being conducted under the banner of the Public Welfare
Foundation, distributed the same material which the government had set
aside for the flood-hit: chura, gur, sattu and polythene sheets. Those
considered his loyalists even had access to kerosene oil.
In
Sanghi, there's no confusion on who's behind the Public Welfare
Foundation. Says Jha's neighbour Bimal Chandra Jha: ''Till date it has
been a one-man show. Santosh Jha manages the affairs. There are no
office bearers, not to our knowledge at least.''
Seven
confiscated cars, including a brand new Tata Sumo Victa, lie in a
government shed near Lakhnour police station. They are in the name of
the Public Welfare Foundation.
After the scam was exposed by The
Indian Express, RJD's Sadhu Yadav claimed he had no links with Jha. But
Sadhu Yadav was among the VIPs present when the Public Welfare
Foundation's relief operations in Phulparas and Ghoghardiha was
launched on September 25, 2004.
The rally near Durgasthan in
Sanghi was so huge that the idea of on-the-spot relief distribution had
to be abandoned. ''It would have led to a stampede,'' recalls a
resident.
The crowd was told that relief would reach every home
in tractors. Jha kept his word. For almost four months, the tractors
did bring in relief. The ''relief operation'' was finally called off
when volunteers, unable to take the strain of travelling to the
interiors daily, began to fall sick.
Residents say that posters
with photographs of Sadhu Yadav and other leaders were plastered in
every corner of Sanghi. Once the flood scam broke, these posters
disappeared overnight.
''He (Jha) was rising fast. He was
Neta-type, distributing free supplies. Each family got something or the
other though we didn't have the floods here,'' says Musharam Mukhia in
Sanghi. ''Santosh has not taken anything from us. But he has given us
lots,'' adds Benoy Kumar Jha. Others nod in agreement.
Jha's
home in Sanghi is a two-storeyed building, surrounded by thatched huts.
Though not as luxurious as his Patna mansion, it has an
air-conditioner. The second floor, still incomplete, was built after
the floods.
I have not seen the Task Force Report on Floods that must have been submitted to the Government , probably , last year. There was an article in a Hindi Paper “Dainik Hindustan” dated 22nd March 2005 by Chaturanan Mishra, former minister of agriculture at the Centre talking about this report. I tried to tap all my contacts for this report without any success. This, despite, right to information act promulgation. One has to have the status of Chaturanan Mishra, at least, to get access to such reports. People like us may also get a chance to see the report but only after it attains a historical status.
To say that it advocates or promotes embankments, what else should have been the terms of reference of the Task Force? The country has about 16,000 kilometers length of this dead elephant. It must be raised and strengthened by the irrigation bureaucracy, which is equally committed to plug all the breaches whether the flood victims like it or not.
Here is an interesting story raising and strengthening of the embankments. The Annual Report of Bihar Irrigation Dept (Water Resource Department) 1987-88 reads something like this, …The Kosi embankments were designed for a flood cycle of 25 years and this year’s flood was that of 100 years. It is decided therefore to raise the embankments of the river so that the discharge of 100 years flood may be accommodated within the embankments. I was talking to the Superintending Engineer (Flood Control) – Bihar, sometimes in 1988. I asked him that there is an average deposition of sediment to the tune of 12.03 centimetres per year within the Kosi embankments in the lower reaches of the Kosi, between Mahishi to Koparia, where the Government had proposed raising of the embankments by 2 metres to accommodate the 100 years flood. These embankments were completed in 1960 and were 28 years old in 1988. And if the annual rise of the bed of the river is multiplied by 12.03 centimetres; the bed of the river was already risen by 3.37 metres, on an average. How on earth, the raising of embankments by two metres only would accommodate 100 years floods? Unless raised by 3.37 metres, the embankments the embankments may not be able to accommodate even the 25 years floods. How then will they accommodate 100 years floods?
He asked me how did I get to know this figure that the average bed rise of the Kosi was 12.03 centimetres? He told me that it was a top secret (This was the Delhi IIT Report that is referred to and is indeed a top secret report). I told him that this information was leaked in a paper presented by the Engineer-in Chief of Bihar in a seminar in the Patna Engineering College a couple of years ago and that is how I know it. He was shocked that such an important information was leaked by none other than the Engineer-in-Chief of the State but had no answer to my question. Then he called his secretary or the technical advisor who appeared to be an engineer. The Superintending Engineer asked him who wrote this portion of the report that by raising the embankments by 2 metres, the 100 year’s flood would be accommodated within the embankments? The secretary had no answer.
The Superintending Engineer cautioned him to ensure that such things should not go in the annual report. “The people have started reading our reports..” he said. The Kosi Embankments were raised, however, by 2 metres in the same year but the sermon was withdrawn from the subsequent reports. That is how the irrigation bureaucracy works. It does not know what it is doing and why? Every official says that he has instructions from above and cannot do anything at the local level. What is it that they get salaries for? Is it not the parking fee for their brains elsewhere?
Dinesh Kumar Mishra
Convenor-Barh Mukti Abhiyan
C-7 Vatika Green City
PO MGMC Dimna Road
Jamshedpur 831018
Times of India
30 April 2005
*Buta turns Bihar 'lovely & sweety'***
VINEETA PANDEY
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2005 10:55:41 PM ]
NEW DELHI: After the long run of Lalu Prasad's in-house production "the
Rabri Devi Raj" in Bihar, the state is now being treated to another
family show.
Out are the Bhojpuri cast. The Pollywood (read Punjab) stars are making
news in Bihar and, you bet, they've got everyone talking about them.
Bihar politics is abuzz with tales of governor Buta Singh's
home-production " Sweety and Lovely."
Confused? Don't be. Sweety and Lovely are the two sons of the Bihar guv
who have been accused of ruling the state by proxy.
Crying foul over the extra-constitutional centres of power, RJD and
JD(U) leaders have accused Singh and sons of turning the state into
their personal fief. From controlling transfers to lording over cricket,
Singh's sons have been charged with dictating decisions on almost every
issue. Specifically, the two sons have been accused of meddling in
transfers and postings in exchange of money.
While Singh confronts the allegations saying, "They are just assisting
me," rivals are crying: "That's exactly the problem."
It all started with the good postings for officers blacklisted by the
RJD. When the governor accused political parties of indulging in
horse-trading, political parties saw that as an advocacy for prolonging
the Sweety and Lovely rule. Politicians have since cranked up their
attack on the role of two sons.
Lalu Prasad, very much peeved with the governor's adverse comments about
the Rabri dispensation, may not have made public his angst yet, but he
has lodged a strong protest with both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
UPA chief Sonia Gandhi.
A charged up RJD leader Ram Kripal Yadav on Wednesday even brought up
the issue in Parliament. "Kaun hai Sweety aur kaun hai Lovely, jinke
madhyam se Bihar mein kuch kuch ho raha hai? (Who are Sweety and Lovely
through whom things are being done in Bihar?)"
Buta Singh, however, denies his sons' involvement in the running of
official matters. "There is a system for everything. It's for the chief
secretary and senior officials to take a call on transfers and postings.
I have kept myself and my family members away from it," Singh said from
Patna.
Lovely's hobnobbing with Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) leaders and his
presence at the dinner hosted by LJP spokesperson Sanjay Singh in Patna
too has raised eyebrows. The fact that Lovely and Sweety were all over
the local TV channels in Bihar within days of imposition of President's
rule shows their importance, say rivals. Ambition has been read even
into the interest Lovely, a former Ranji level player, is taking in the
affairs of the Bihar Cricket Association.
Buta Singh, however, is unfazed. "My sons have always assisted me just
the way many other senior leaders have got the support of their
families. But they never interfere or try to influence me," Singh
countered.
For record, Sweety was the OSD to Buta Singh during his tenure as
chairman of Parliament's public accounts committee. Buta Singh adds:
"These are baseless allegations. Absolute rubbish.”
Congressmen are busy defending their man. "President's rule is
witnessing improvement in the law and order situation. Since this may
benefit Congress in the changing political scenario, rivals are getting
panicky. Hence, all these allegations are being made," said Congress'
Bihar secretary Shakeel-Uz-Zaman Ansari.
But Buta's detractors do not buy this. They insist that its the guv's
sons handling the affairs of the state. "What to say of other things,
they even go and buy 15 sherwanis in a day for Singh," said an RJD leader.
Buta shrugs aside the charge. "Every son takes care of his father. They
even take care of my medicine and food. Can that too be made an issue? I
won't leave my family for the fear of criticism," he retorts.
Mr. Goswami is also from Bihar. There was a profile of Mr. Goswami in
the Business Standard yesterday. Supposedly an honest and bright
officer who later became what this scam suggests. His name was also
cleared by the PMO for appointment in the PMO as Director and
ostensibly at the suggestion of Lalu Prasad Yadav his name was
dropped.
Vagish
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - VIII
Part of flood money parked in a Bihar shed
Police seized 7 new cars from kingpin in Jan, all acquired after the
flood. One of them was bought from Sadhu Yadav
SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY
Posted online: Sunday, May 01, 2005 at 0146 hours IST
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - VIII MADHEPUR (MADHUBANI) APRIL 30: At
least a chunk of the money siphoned off from Bihar's flood relief
funds can be traced inside a shed, just outside the Lakhnour police
station, in a remote corner of Madhubani.
Parked here are seven almost-new cars, costing around Rs 50 lakh,
seized by the police from Santosh Kumar Jha and his associates just
before the Assembly elections.
At least five of them—a Toyota Qualis, a Tavera, a Tata Sumo Victa, an
Ambassador and a Tempo Trax Cruiser—were brand new and just out of the
showroom. They do not even have number plates or registration numbers.
A sixth one, a white Ambassador in the name of Santosh Kumar Jha has a
VIP number plate of BR-28C-0001. The police station officer, Dinesh
Prasad told The Indian Express that during the interrogation, Jha said
that he had bought the car from Sadhu Yadav, RJD MP and Rabri Devi's
brother. Sadhu Yadav has said that he did not know Jha.
Most of these cars were purchased by Santosh Kumar Jha—in his name and
also in the name of his close relatives—from September 2004 when flood
relief funds from then Patna DM Gautam Goswami's office began to flow
into his account. Documents show that the Tavera was purchased on
September 10 by Jha from Gemini Mobiles Pvt. Ltd. in Lucknow.
The seven cars were seized from Jha and 28 of his associates on
January 26, 2005 when they came to Madhepur from Patna to show off
their money and muscle power after he bagged the LJP ticket.
But the model code of conduct was already in place and the Lakhnour
police stopped the motorcade, arrested all the 29 and seized the cars.
At least six of Jha's associates were carrying weapons. Santosh Jha
was not carrying any weapon but had cash of Rs.1.25 lakh with him.
When asked by the police, Jha reportedly said that the money had been
withdrawn from a bank. But neither Jha, nor his local representative
R.K. Maharaj, has been able to produce the bank passbook to show the
withdrawal. So, the money too is lying with the police station, says
Dinesh Prasad.
Earlier on January 26, the Jhanjharpur police station had recorded a
case against Jha and his associates for visiting the house of
Rupnarayan Jha, the RJD candidate, and threatening him. As per a
complaint lodged by a relative of Rupnarayan Jha, Santosh Jha and his
men threatened Rupnarayan with dire consequences if he did not
withdraw from the contest. He was arrested from Lakhnour and the cars
seized. He, however, was allowed to file his nomination papers from
custody and was released on February 12, three days before the first
phase of polling. His 28 associates continued to be in jail till the
first week of March.
When contacted, Divisional commissioner for Darbhanga K.P. Ramaiya,
under whose jurisdiction falls Madhubani, said that he was aware of
the seizure of Santosh Kumar Jha's fleet of cars. ''But it is a
criminal matter and should be looked after by the district
administration.''
Asked if the purchases could be related to the money siphoned off
flood relief funds, Ramaiya said: ''Yes, it is a reflection, an
ostensible display of money and wealth amassed by him. But apart from
an administrative inquiry, such display of wealth should also attract
inquiry by the Income Tax department,'' he added.
Talking to The Indian Express in Patna on Thursday, Jha denied there
was any scam. ''In fact, I chipped in at the right moment and provided
relief to lakhs of people,'' he said. He also refused to talk about
the car he reportedly bought from Sadhu Yadav.
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - VII What Goswami did not tell you on TV
Baba Satya Sai Industries not in official file, he claimed it was authorised
VARGHESE K GEORGE
Posted online: Saturday, April 30, 2005 at 0255 hours IST
PATNA, APRIL 29: Official documents accessed by The Indian
Express conclusively prove that claims made by former Patna DM Gautam
Goswami at a press conference in Delhi are baseless.
Goswami:
''The MD of the BSSIC asked me to make payments to BSSI through letter
number 709/04 dated 26.06.04. I did only that.''
Fact: The
letter, which offers relief materials to Patna DM, says: ''Within 15
days of receiving the supply, you (DM) are required to make 100 per
cent payment by crossed cheque or DD to Bihar State Small Industries
Corporation Ltd, Patna.'' The usage of the abbreviation (BSSI) begins
only in the payment orders signed by Goswami.
Goswami: ''We went for a tender in which BSSIC also participated.''
Fact:
No records of the tender are available in the files of the district
administration. BSSIC is the only firm offering material and shown as
getting all the orders and payments, while the money landed in the Baba
Satya Sai Industries account.
Goswami: ''Baba Satya Sai Industries was an authorised supplier of the BSSIC.''
Fact:
Baba Satya Sai Industries doesn't figure in any files, either in the
corporation or in the district administration. When the government firm
denied receipts of Rs 17.45 crore ''despatched'' to it by the Patna DM,
investigations led to the account of Baba Satya Sai industries.
Goswami: ''The Rs 13 lakh that we paid to BSSIC is the commission to them.''
Fact:
It was paid against bills of material. BSSIC payment order for Santosh
Printing Press dated 19.10.04 says: ''Out of the above bill amount of
22,63,500, Rs 12,52,221 has been received from the DM Patna. Service
charge of six per cent should be deducted from the same amount. Thus
after deducting Rs 81,134 the net amount of Rs 12,71,087 will be paid
to Ms Santosh Printing Press.'' This is the only legal transaction in
the entire relief expenditure.
Well, when election to second phase was being held in Bihar, (when it was held
in Madhubani), I was there, looking at the prospects of empowerment and issues
in elections. It was then i saw two independents Santosh Jha and Gulab Yadav. It
was rumored widely there they had enormous ill gotten money. Yadav had his money
in Pune. Jha was said to be a smuggler. Both were widely seen as Sadhu Yadav
men. But whereas Yadav was duped by Sadhu and was not given RJD ticket despite
being paid money and having been promised. Santosh Jha was was more closer to
Sadhu in public perception and his LJP ticket was just seen as front for Sadhu.
Many in Bihar rceived LJP ticket when they were unable to get RJD TIcket. They
were seen as mainly RJD men, who if won shall play crucial role in post election
alliances. Jha has big marble mansion in Madhubani and did distribute releif
when flood came last year. Both, Jha and Gulab yadav did not receive any
substantail vote. Gulab received much less tha
n Santosh. Santosh was in fact in jail till just a day before election, as he
was accused of attacking the house of Rup Narain Jha, an independent candidate,
who eventaully won from Madhupur constituncy in this election. This man was in
Laloo's cabinet and was denied RJD ticket for last two successive elections. In
both last elections he stood as independent but could only win this time. When
Santosh had surrounded Rup Narain Jha's house in the time leading to election,
he was caught by police. It was widely rumoured in the area that police
recovered large amount of cash and illegal weapons from his and firned's cars.
Santosh was booked under armed acts but police men took away his cash.
About Gulab Yadav, if you want to read more, please have a look of May issue of
Humanscape, where i have described in more detail the condition of Madhupur
constituency.
Love Rahul Ramagundam
----- Original Message -----
From: S R Jha <srjha@...>
Date: Friday, April 29, 2005 3:32 pm
Subject: RE: [biharchintan] Bihar flood scam, Part-V
> Bhai Saheb,
>
> Kuch aap bhi tahkeekat karen aur batayen ki yeh "heera" ( Santosh
> Kumar Jha ) hai kaun ? Matlab ki, kaun gaon ghar chhanhi
> natwarlalaji ke?
>
> Sudip
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: biharchintan@...
> [biharchintan@...]On Behalf Of vagish Jha
> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 11:52 AM
> To: Bihar Chintan
> Subject: [biharchintan] Bihar flood scam, Part-V
>
>
> The fifth part of the report.
> Vagish K Jha
>
> THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - V
>
>
>
> Contractor Jha built fortune under RJD
>
>
> In ad for Sadhu, Jha promised to fight for poor with RJD help;
> Sadhu: Who's he?
>
>
> VARGHESE K GEORGE
>
>
> Posted online: Thursday, April 28, 2005 at 0235 hours IST
>
>
>
> PATNA, APRIL 27: Santosh Kumar Jha, the man identified as the
> recipient of siphoned-off funds in the Bihar flood scam exposed by The
> Indian Express, is a government contractor who flourished under the
> RJD regime.
>
> Jha's friends confirmed to this newspaper that he handles government
> ''contracts worth tens of crores'' at any given time and operates
> across Bihar. ''He enjoys making money and living lavishly. He has a
> fleet of cars and always wants to buy the latest one,'' a close
> associate said.
>
>
>
> When contacted, Jha said he was away in Motihari and would ''clear
> everything on his return to Patna.''
>
> Confronted with Express reports that revealed him as one of the
> beneficiaries of the scam, he said it was all ''misrepresentation of
> facts''. ''I have been a supplier for the BSSIC for long and I have
> documents that prove my role is bonafide,'' Jha said.
>
> Before surfacing as an LJP candidate in the recent Assembly elections,
> Jha was always identified as an RJD insider.
>
> In fact, in a newspaper advertisement he released in October 16, 2004,
> Jha said he ''would shed the last drop of his blood to fight for the
> poor of Bihar, with the help of the RJD.''
>
> The quarter-page ad is about the ''relief work conducted in 27
> panchayats in Phulparas assembly segment'' three weeks earlier.
> ''Sattu, candles and sarees were distributed to thousands of poor by
> the honorable Member of Parliament Sadhu Yadav,'' said the
> advertisement put out by Jha, identified as ''President, Public
> Welfare Foundation.''
>
> Buta hints at CBI probe
>
> • PATNA: Bihar Governor Buta Singh on Wednesday hinted at a CBI
> probe into the multi-crore flood-relief scam exposed by The Indian
> Express. ''We may order a CBI probe if the state agency fails to come
> out with the truth involving diversion and defalcation of relief
> funds,'' Singh said.
>
>
> Talking to reporters in Delhi, Sadhu Yadav said: ''I'm not a minister,
> commissioner or DM and I don't know where the money went.'' He said
> the Express report was making wild allegations and that he did not
> know Santosh Kumar Jha.
>
> Besides Jha's claim of his association with Sadhu, The Indian Express
> has independently verified from sources close to Sadhu Yadav that he
> had travelled with Jha to the interiors of Madhubani, distributing
> relief.
>
> All these were part of Jha's preparations for getting an RJD ticket
> from any seat in the region. But his chances were scuttled because he
> landed in trouble with Devendra Yadav, powerful RJD politician in the
> region. After managing an LJP ticket to contest from Madhepur, he was
> arrested by the district police on different charges and kept in jail
> for one month.
>
> Patna DM Sudheer Kumar today confirmed that more than 17 crore meant
> for flood relief flowed from the government account to the account of
> Baba Satya Sai Industries and later to accounts controlled by Santosh
> Kumar Jha.
>
> ''I have made inquiries into the transactions relating to flood relief
> and several matters of concern has surfaced. Despite payment of
> rupees, there is not even a single voucher available; and the money
> has been traced as flowing into accounts which have no reason to
> receive it as per the records available with me. At any rate, the
> entire worth of relief shown to have supplied is not more than Rs 7.7
> crore,'' he said.
>
> Kumar has submitted a report to the Bihar Chief Secretary in this
> regard.******
> Paswan throws out Jha
> NEW DELHI: A day after The Indian Express reported that Santosh Kumar
> Jha had contested the Bihar polls on an LJP ticket from Madhepur, LJP
> chief Ram Vilas Paswan expelled him from the primary membership of the
> party for his involvement in the diversion of flood relief funds.
> ****
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Bhai Saheb,
Kuch aap bhi tahkeekat karen aur batayen ki yeh "heera" ( Santosh Kumar Jha )
hai kaun ? Matlab ki, kaun gaon ghar chhanhi natwarlalaji ke?
Sudip
-----Original Message-----
From: biharchintan@...
[mailto:biharchintan@...]On Behalf Of vagish Jha
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 11:52 AM
To: Bihar Chintan
Subject: [biharchintan] Bihar flood scam, Part-V
The fifth part of the report.
Vagish K Jha
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - V
Contractor Jha built fortune under RJD
In ad for Sadhu, Jha promised to fight for poor with RJD help; Sadhu: Who's he?
VARGHESE K GEORGE
Posted online: Thursday, April 28, 2005 at 0235 hours IST
PATNA, APRIL 27: Santosh Kumar Jha, the man identified as the
recipient of siphoned-off funds in the Bihar flood scam exposed by The
Indian Express, is a government contractor who flourished under the
RJD regime.
Jha's friends confirmed to this newspaper that he handles government
''contracts worth tens of crores'' at any given time and operates
across Bihar. ''He enjoys making money and living lavishly. He has a
fleet of cars and always wants to buy the latest one,'' a close
associate said.
When contacted, Jha said he was away in Motihari and would ''clear
everything on his return to Patna.''
Confronted with Express reports that revealed him as one of the
beneficiaries of the scam, he said it was all ''misrepresentation of
facts''. ''I have been a supplier for the BSSIC for long and I have
documents that prove my role is bonafide,'' Jha said.
Before surfacing as an LJP candidate in the recent Assembly elections,
Jha was always identified as an RJD insider.
In fact, in a newspaper advertisement he released in October 16, 2004,
Jha said he ''would shed the last drop of his blood to fight for the
poor of Bihar, with the help of the RJD.''
The quarter-page ad is about the ''relief work conducted in 27
panchayats in Phulparas assembly segment'' three weeks earlier.
''Sattu, candles and sarees were distributed to thousands of poor by
the honorable Member of Parliament Sadhu Yadav,'' said the
advertisement put out by Jha, identified as ''President, Public
Welfare Foundation.''
Buta hints at CBI probe
• PATNA: Bihar Governor Buta Singh on Wednesday hinted at a CBI
probe into the multi-crore flood-relief scam exposed by The Indian
Express. ''We may order a CBI probe if the state agency fails to come
out with the truth involving diversion and defalcation of relief
funds,'' Singh said.
Talking to reporters in Delhi, Sadhu Yadav said: ''I'm not a minister,
commissioner or DM and I don't know where the money went.'' He said
the Express report was making wild allegations and that he did not
know Santosh Kumar Jha.
Besides Jha's claim of his association with Sadhu, The Indian Express
has independently verified from sources close to Sadhu Yadav that he
had travelled with Jha to the interiors of Madhubani, distributing
relief.
All these were part of Jha's preparations for getting an RJD ticket
from any seat in the region. But his chances were scuttled because he
landed in trouble with Devendra Yadav, powerful RJD politician in the
region. After managing an LJP ticket to contest from Madhepur, he was
arrested by the district police on different charges and kept in jail
for one month.
Patna DM Sudheer Kumar today confirmed that more than 17 crore meant
for flood relief flowed from the government account to the account of
Baba Satya Sai Industries and later to accounts controlled by Santosh
Kumar Jha.
''I have made inquiries into the transactions relating to flood relief
and several matters of concern has surfaced. Despite payment of
rupees, there is not even a single voucher available; and the money
has been traced as flowing into accounts which have no reason to
receive it as per the records available with me. At any rate, the
entire worth of relief shown to have supplied is not more than Rs 7.7
crore,'' he said.
Kumar has submitted a report to the Bihar Chief Secretary in this regard.
******
Paswan throws out Jha
NEW DELHI: A day after The Indian Express reported that Santosh Kumar
Jha had contested the Bihar polls on an LJP ticket from Madhepur, LJP
chief Ram Vilas Paswan expelled him from the primary membership of the
party for his involvement in the diversion of flood relief funds.
****
Yahoo! Groups Links
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - VI 'I got 17 crore as advance, hope to get more' Bihar Contractor Jha tells Express: Sadhu Yadav like my brother, Bihar needs more Goswamis VARGHESE K GEORGE Posted online: Friday, April 29, 2005 at 0253 hours IST
PATNA,
APRIL 28: In a startling admission, Santosh Kumar Jha, a
contractor-cum-politician who calls RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav's
brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav his ''brother'' and says the state needs
''more officers like (former Patna DM) Gautam Goswami'', today said
that he received Rs 17 crore meant for flood relief in Bihar.
Jha claimed that the money was ''simply an advance'' and that he hoped to get ''much more when the final settlement is done.''
After
an investigation by The Indian Express exposed the multi-crore Bihar
flood scam and established that he was the recipient of siphoned-off
funds, Jha invited this correspondent to an unfurnished apartment of a
multi-storeyed building in Patna.
''Now that I am explaining
things to you, do not use the word scam. There is no scam. In fact, I
chipped in at the right moment and provided relief to lakhs of
people,'' Jha said.
''The Rs 17 crore we received were advances.
We have not yet submitted bills. Statements of the BSSIC (nodal agency
for flood relief distribution) and Patna district administration are
not taking into account the version of the suppliers,'' he claimed.
''My
Punam Printing Press was blacklisted after the Katihar FIR (Jha is an
accused in a case of siphoning of Rs 2.25 crore from literacy funds in
Katihar in 2003). I had to find a way out and I changed it to Santosh
Printing Press.''
''I got the contract from the BSSIC and gave
it to Baba Satya Sai Industries. They (he doesn't explain who) supplied
material on advances paid and the final settlement is yet to be done.
You should wait till I submit the bills.''
Asked about his links with Sadhu Yadav, Jha said the RJD leader was like his ''brother''.
''Now that my name has been tainted, I will wait till it is cleared. Only then will I re-establish contact with him.''
He
also praised former Patna DM Gautam Goswami whose recent career switch
from the IAS to Sahara Group is itself mired in controversy: ''Bihar
needs more officers like him. If you keep writing things like this, no
DM will go about his work when the floods come the next time.
Nobody will buy relief material and the poor and helpless will die.''
It
was from the Patna DM's account that Rs 17.45 crore was withdrawn and
deposited into the account of the BSSI—not the Bihar State Small
Industries Corporation but the Baba Satya Sai Industries, a firm which
figures nowhere in the official list of relief suppliers.
''I am
worth crores. Now all property is mortgaged to give supplies to the
poor. My association with the BSSIC goes back years. I get the
contracts and they take a six per cent commission about which they are
happy.''
Yet Jha contradicts Goswami's claims. For one, the
former DM had said that bills of all payments and more were pending—Jha
said he had not submitted any bills. Earlier, Patna District Magistrate
Sudheer Kumar too said his office had no bills pending. ********************************
Not just Patna, scamsters bid for 'services' in 5 districts VARGHESE K GEORGE Posted online: Friday, April 29, 2005 at 0246 hours IST
PATNA,
APRIL 28: Men who siphoned off Rs 17.45 crore meant for flood victims
in Patna alone last year had offered their ''services'' to at least
four other districts in Bihar. This is the latest revelation in the
Bihar flood scam, exposed by The Indian Express in a series of
investigative stories.
The Bihar State Small Industries
Corporation (BSSIC)—the initials which were cleverly used by the
swindlers to pump money into the account of Baba Satya Sai
Industries—is worried over these new findings.
''We are writing
to several DMs, asking what correspondence did they have with us during
the floods,'' said R N Tiwari, MD, BSSIC.
Santosh Printing
Press—it's owned by Santosh Kumar Jha, recipient of the money that
flowed from the Patna DM's account—wrote to the BSSIC on June 22, 2004
and offered to supply relief material to different districts. Patna was
only one of them.
The letter was signed, on behalf of Santosh Printing Press, by B K Singh. So far, he remains a mystery man.
Subsequently,
M Prasad, the then BSSIC managing director, wrote to at least five
DMs—of Patna, Katihar, Supaul, Samastipur and Darbhanga—offering relief
materials on rates quoted by Santosh Printing Press.
As per
BSSIC records, only the Supaul and Patna DMs responded. The Supaul DM
invited them for a bid while Patna DM Gautam Goswami placed two orders,
worth Rs 22 lakh, to the BSSIC which in turn outsourced it to Santosh
Printing Press. What happened in the case of Patna is no longer a
secret. But what is now a matter of inquiry is what happened in the
other districts.
The role of BSSIC insiders in the entire scam
is becoming an increasing possibility. Though M Prasad denied he knew B
K Singh, he admitted receiving letters from Singh on several occasions.
He even wrote to the Patna DM, requesting that an identity card be
issued to Singh to enter the Patna airport. Santosh Printing Press
figures in the BSSIC files as suppliers of goods, ranging from malaria
drugs to candles, in several districts and under several government
projects.
''Our association with the BSSIC is longstanding.
After the blacklisting of my Punam Printing Press, I began using the
name of Santosh Printing Press,'' Santosh Kumar Jha told The Indian
Express. Total allocation for flood relief across the state was nearly
Rs 100 crore. After Patna, Darbhanga got the maximum money: nearly Rs 7
crore.
Darbhanga DM Pradeep Kumar told The Indian Express that he procured material from the local market after a tender.
Investigations
into the cash inflow and outflow of bank accounts of Baba Satya Sai
Industries, Santosh Printing Press, Punam Printing Press and Hindustan
Business Systems—the last three are directly owned by Santosh Kumar
Jha—are expected to establish the linkages of flood relief and other
government procurements. ****************************
'I was not only one overseeing operations' SHIV AROOR
Posted online: Friday, April 29, 2005 at 0119 hours IST
Gautam
Goswami NEW DELHI, APRIL 28: Denying any wrongdoing in the Bihar flood
scam and claiming he had documents to ''prove his innocence'', Gautam
Goswami, Patna's former District Magistrate, said here today that he
should not be held responsible for any misutilisation of relief funds
after he had released the amount.
To every question on his role
in the alleged misappropriation of funds reserved for last year's flood
relief and rehabilitation, Goswami said, "I was not the only one
overseeing the operations, it (the relief management) was teamwork...
If someone has misutilised funds after we transferred it, that will
come up in the inquiry.''
He said his ''responsibility'' as
far as funds were concerned ended with its disbursement to Baba Satya
Sai Industries (BSSI), Patna, at the authorisation of the Bihar State
Small Industries Corporation (BSSIC).
''The Corporation (BSSIC)
is an institution. How the money was used is their responsibility. It
is a matter of bills?'' said Goswami, adding, ''Whatever was done will
come out in the inquiry.'' Incidentally, BSSI is not on the BSSIC's
list of registered relief suppliers. And as per norms, the funds should
first have been released to the BSSIC, which would then have handed it
to BSSI for distribution of relief.
Said Goswami: ''I have proof
of my innocence. I welcome the inquiry. Maybe, something went
wrong—everything will be shown soon.''
Goswami also claimed that
he had never personally met B.K. Singh and Sanjeev Kumar—the two
apparently authorised by the BSSIC as liaison for the contract—and
considered the BSSIC's authorisation letter last June 26 (No. 709/04)
sufficient to sign pay order cheques made out to BSSI.
Earlier,
current BSSIC MD R N Tiwari had said the corporation had never
authorised either B K Singh or Sanjeev Singh to receive the funds on
its behalf and had not introduced them, either. Patna DM Sudheer Kumar
too had said he was not in possession of any such letter. In fact, both
had confirmed that Baba Satya Sai Industries does not figure in any of
the files or communication currently in their possession.
As for
the Govt's assertion that his resignation as Patna DM has not yet been
accepted and his new job at Sahara was ''illegal'', Goswami said, ''I
saw better opportunities with a private firm (Sahara Group). I have not
broken any service rules. I am not drawing any benefits from my 13
years of government service.'' **************************************
BJP demands arrest of Goswami, Sadhu, Jha
PATNA:
The BJP on Thursday demanded that former Patna DM Gautam Goswami,
politician Sadhu Yadav and Santosh Jha be arrested immediately for
their alleged involvement in siphoning off funds meant for flood
relief. ''It is now clear that large amounts of money meant for the
poor had been swindled during the RJD regime. Gautam Goswami was the
blue-eyed boy of the RJD, and Santosh Jha was a close associate of RJD
leader Sadhu Yadav. Also, Ramvilas Paswan cannot shirk responsibility
by dismissing Jha from the party. Only a CBI inquiry can unearth the
scale and complexities of this scandal,'' said BJP leader Sushil Modi. ************************** 'No clue how Jha got ticket' NIRMALA GANAPATHY Posted online: Friday, April 29, 2005 at 0159 hours IST
NEW
DELHI, APRIL 28: Lok Janashakti Party leader Ram Vilas Paswan said
today that he had no knowledge about how Santosh Kumar Jha, the
contractor identified as one of the beneficiaries in the flood scam,
got a ticket from his party to fight the Bihar Assembly elections.
''I
don't know how he got the ticket. The parliamentary board had decided
to give the ticket to Roop Narayan Jha but somehow, Santosh Kumar Jha
got the D Form and got the ticket,'' said Paswan, who threw Jha out of
the party yesterday.
The LJP leader also said he
has now initiated an internal inquiry to find out how the ticket landed
in Jha's hands. ''We have started an inquiry to investigate who got him
the ticket,'' he said.
Jha had fought the polls from Madhubani.
Having failed to get a ticket from the RJD, he managed to get an LJP
ticket. Paswan today said that politicians jumping parties in search of
a ticket is nothing new in Bihar.
Asked how the LJP accommodated
a politician who was associated with rival party RJD and was a close
aide of RJD MP Sadhu Yadav, he said: ''In an election, if a person
doesn't get a ticket from one party, he goes to another party. This
happens in Bihar.''
Ironically, Roop Narayan Jha, who was also
with the RJD at one point of time, went on to win the seat from
Madhubani, while Jha came a poor fourth. Roop Narayan Jha, sources
said, is among the 17 MLAs who have now given letters of support to
JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar.
Paswan, who admitted that he had
canvassed in Jha's area, however, said he can not recall ever meeting
Jha. On the scam uncovered by The Indian Express, he said: ''What has
happened is good. There was looting going on there,'' he said.
Madhubani
is in the heart of Mithilanchal and dominated by Mithali Brahmins. The
LJP has been giving tickets to Brahmins in that area. ''We would have
given a ticket to a Brahmin,'' Paswan said.
The fifth part of the report.
Vagish K Jha
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM, PART - V
Contractor Jha built fortune under RJD
In ad for Sadhu, Jha promised to fight for poor with RJD help; Sadhu: Who's he?
VARGHESE K GEORGE
Posted online: Thursday, April 28, 2005 at 0235 hours IST
PATNA, APRIL 27: Santosh Kumar Jha, the man identified as the
recipient of siphoned-off funds in the Bihar flood scam exposed by The
Indian Express, is a government contractor who flourished under the
RJD regime.
Jha's friends confirmed to this newspaper that he handles government
''contracts worth tens of crores'' at any given time and operates
across Bihar. ''He enjoys making money and living lavishly. He has a
fleet of cars and always wants to buy the latest one,'' a close
associate said.
When contacted, Jha said he was away in Motihari and would ''clear
everything on his return to Patna.''
Confronted with Express reports that revealed him as one of the
beneficiaries of the scam, he said it was all ''misrepresentation of
facts''. ''I have been a supplier for the BSSIC for long and I have
documents that prove my role is bonafide,'' Jha said.
Before surfacing as an LJP candidate in the recent Assembly elections,
Jha was always identified as an RJD insider.
In fact, in a newspaper advertisement he released in October 16, 2004,
Jha said he ''would shed the last drop of his blood to fight for the
poor of Bihar, with the help of the RJD.''
The quarter-page ad is about the ''relief work conducted in 27
panchayats in Phulparas assembly segment'' three weeks earlier.
''Sattu, candles and sarees were distributed to thousands of poor by
the honorable Member of Parliament Sadhu Yadav,'' said the
advertisement put out by Jha, identified as ''President, Public
Welfare Foundation.''
Buta hints at CBI probe
• PATNA: Bihar Governor Buta Singh on Wednesday hinted at a CBI
probe into the multi-crore flood-relief scam exposed by The Indian
Express. ''We may order a CBI probe if the state agency fails to come
out with the truth involving diversion and defalcation of relief
funds,'' Singh said.
Talking to reporters in Delhi, Sadhu Yadav said: ''I'm not a minister,
commissioner or DM and I don't know where the money went.'' He said
the Express report was making wild allegations and that he did not
know Santosh Kumar Jha.
Besides Jha's claim of his association with Sadhu, The Indian Express
has independently verified from sources close to Sadhu Yadav that he
had travelled with Jha to the interiors of Madhubani, distributing
relief.
All these were part of Jha's preparations for getting an RJD ticket
from any seat in the region. But his chances were scuttled because he
landed in trouble with Devendra Yadav, powerful RJD politician in the
region. After managing an LJP ticket to contest from Madhepur, he was
arrested by the district police on different charges and kept in jail
for one month.
Patna DM Sudheer Kumar today confirmed that more than 17 crore meant
for flood relief flowed from the government account to the account of
Baba Satya Sai Industries and later to accounts controlled by Santosh
Kumar Jha.
''I have made inquiries into the transactions relating to flood relief
and several matters of concern has surfaced. Despite payment of
rupees, there is not even a single voucher available; and the money
has been traced as flowing into accounts which have no reason to
receive it as per the records available with me. At any rate, the
entire worth of relief shown to have supplied is not more than Rs 7.7
crore,'' he said.
Kumar has submitted a report to the Bihar Chief Secretary in this regard.
******
Paswan throws out Jha
NEW DELHI: A day after The Indian Express reported that Santosh Kumar
Jha had contested the Bihar polls on an LJP ticket from Madhepur, LJP
chief Ram Vilas Paswan expelled him from the primary membership of the
party for his involvement in the diversion of flood relief funds.
****
The story of flood-bounty continues-and we can see what the
alternative in Bihar is worth.
Vagish
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM - PART IV
Cash flowed from DM to Sadhu Yadav's man
Records show Paswan's Assembly candidate Santosh Kumar Jha got chunk
of siphoned-off funds, was also man behind fake BSSI account into
which Goswami paid Rs 17.45 crore
VARGHESE K GEORGE
Posted online: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at 0222 hours IST
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM PATNA, APRIL 26: The flood scam that has stained
Bihar's top bureaucracy, including its high-profile former District
Magistrate Gautam Goswami, is now lapping at the feet of the state's
political establishment.
Documents accessed by The Indian Express and interviews with top
government officials monitoring the scam's paper trail reveal that a
chunk of the money meant for the poor and the homeless was siphoned
off and paid into the accounts of Santosh Kumar Jha, a politician from
Bihar's Madhubani district.
How big this chunk was hasn't been ascertained yet but the evidence so
far indicates a clear nexus between Jha and the kingpins of the scam.
Jha used to be regular in Rashtriya Janata Dal circles. He issued
newspaper advertisements hailing Sadhu Yadav—brother of the then chief
minister Rabri Devi—during festivals. And after failing to get an RJD
ticket in the last Assembly elections in February, contested on Ram
Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party ticket from the Madhepur seat in
Madhubani district. Winning 6151 votes, he came fourth.
Jha was not available for comment despite repeated attempts.
According to Patna DM Sudheer Kumar, Rs 7.29 lakh of flood relief
money has been paid for a Bolero vehicle in the name of Rajeev Kumar
Jha of village Sanghi in Madhubani. Authorities suspect that Rajeev
could be related to Santosh. The car, records show, was bought from
Bebco Motors in Jamshedpur.
What makes Santosh Kumar Jha a prime suspect in the scam along with
Goswami, sources told The Indian Express, is that he could be the
mystery B K Singh appearing in official records. There is enough
reason.
• Santosh Jha is already an accused in a case of siphoning of Rs 2.25
crore from literacy funds in Katihar district in 2003. (Case Number
151/2003 with the Town Police Station, Katihar).
• In April 2004—anticipating flood relief in the summer—Sanjeev Kumar,
who is yet to be identified, opened an account under the name Baba
Satya Sai Industries. (This abbreviated is BSSI, similar to the
initials of Bihar Small Scale Industries Corporation, the sole
legitimate supplier of relief).
• Sanjeev Kumar was introduced to IDBI Bank in Patna by Poonam
Printing Press, which is owned by Santosh Jha. Incidentally, this same
Poonam Printing Press was the front for the 2003 literacy scam in
Katihar.
• Money began flooding the Satya Sai account thanks to Goswami.
Between July 12 and August 9, 2004, Rs 17.45 crore flowed from Patna
DM's account to this Satya Sai account.
• The outflow from the account begins the very same day as the inflow.
• On July 12, Rs 25 lakh is transferred to the account of Hindustan
Business System (in the same bank) which again is owned by Santosh
Jha.
• Hindustan Business System account gets Rs 25 lakh on July 14, Rs 50
lakh on July 15.
• On July 27, Rs 1 crore is transferred to the Poonam Printing Press
account—the account which introduced Baba Satya Sai.
• In a parallel process, huge cash withdrawals by Sanjeev Kumar are
recorded: Rs 1 crore each on July 19, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31. Again on
August 4, 6, 7, Rs 1 crore each. The last transaction of Rs 60 lakh
was done on August 10.
That's not all.
If there was one legitimate transaction in the flood relief scam, at
least on paper, it was the Rs 22-lakh order by BSSIC for the supply of
relief. For this, BSSIC received Rs 13 lakh from Goswami. Records show
that this Rs 22 lakh went to the same two people linked to the alleged
siphoning of Rs 17.45 crore: B K Singh and Sanjeev Kumar.
Sanjeev Kumar and B K Singh are the men who transact deals on behalf
of Santosh Printing Press (also owned by Santosh Kumar Jha) which,
believe it or not, supplied sattu, polythene sheets and candles to the
legitimate Bihar Small Scale Industries Corporation. Papers show that
the press is in Kadam Kuan but The Indian Express found no such
establishment in that neighbourhood.
**************************
Box Item
Chargesheet coming,
says Chief Secy;
Governor confirms probe
• After sitting on the files for months, the Bihar administration is
now waking up to the scale of the flood relief scam exposed by The
Indian Express in an ongoing series. While Chief Secretary K A H
Subramaniam told The Indian Express from Patna that a chargesheet
against former District Magistrate and high-profile IAS officer Gautam
Goswami ''would come in due course.''
In New Delhi, speaking to NDTV 24 X 7, Bihar Governor, acknowledging
the reports in The Indian Express said, when asked whether an FIR
would be registered in connection with the case: ''Yes, surely it will
be.'' Singh added: ''I will get it investigated properly.''
*************************************************
And here is the third part of the scam ( Indian Express, April 26, 2005)
Vagish
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM - PART III
Crores paid to firm with same initials as Bihar govt deptBihar On paper, Goswami paid Rs 17 cr to BSSIC (Bihar Small Scale Industries Corp) but money went to account of Baba Satya Sai Industries (BSSI)!
Varghese K George
Posted online: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 at 0248 hours IST
PATNA, APRIL 25: Fresh official records of flood relief, accessed by The Indian Express tonight, reveal a startling story of official subterfuge right under the nose of Bihar's top bureaucracy.
On paper, a sum of Rs 17.45 crore, released by the Bihar Government for the homeless and the marooned, was paid, in several instalments, from then Patna District Magistrate Gautam Goswami to BSSIC. This is Bihar Small Scale Industries Corporation, the sole supplier of relief.
In reality, the money did go to BSSI but this BSSI isn't the government corporation—it is Baba Satya Sai Industries, a firm which figures nowhere in the official list of relief suppliers.
The Indian Express can now piece together the method behind the siphoning of funds based on interviews with highly placed sources and a close scrutiny of official documents. In brief:
• Goswami has records showing requests from someone by the name of B K Singh posing as an employee of BSSIC (the government unit).
• Goswami promptly makes payment orders as per these requests—payments adding up to Rs 17.45 crore. However, the cheques issued from the DM's account in the Pataliputra Gramin Bank (A/C No 3782) are not account-payee but drawn in favour of ''Yourself.''
• These are, in turn, used to apply for banker's cheques in favour of Baba Satya Sai Industries.
• The Gramin Bank issues banker's cheques in favour of Baba Satya Sai Industries.
• In the counterfoil of Goswami's cheque book, however, it is shown as having been paid to BSSIC.
• These banker's cheques are submitted into the account of Baba Satya Sai Industries in IDBI bank in Patna operated by one Sanjeev Kumar Singh.
• Total money which flowed into the Baba Satya Sai Industries from the DM's account is 17.45 crore.
Who is Sanjiv Kumar Singh? Is he linked to B K Singh, the man making the requests for payment to Goswami?
On Saturday, BSSIC Managing Director M Prasad admitted to The Indian Express that there was no employee called B K Singh. But new documents show that Prasad may have overlooked a key fact: On July 19, a week after B K Singh had asked for Rs 2 crore, Prasad wrote to Goswami requesting for ''two passes in the name of B K Singh and Sanjeev Kumar to enter the premises of the airport.''
Two days earlier, B K Singh had written—on plain paper—to Prasad to ''authorise me and Sanjeev Kumar to deal with the Patna DM and airport.''
Prasad's recommendation to the Patna DM was ostensibly in response to this request.
Today, despite repeated requests, Prasad was not available for comment.
Official documents show that on July 12 itself, B K Singh had asked for an advance of Rs 2 crore and was paid Rs 50 lakh on July 15.
Sources say both B K Singh and Sanjeev Kumar were both suppliers, to whom the BSSIC outsourced its initial orders worth Rs 22 lakh.
The only other place where Sanjeev Kumar finds mention in the district administration's files is in a report by an Additional District Magistrate which says he had inspected the premises of Sanjeev Kumar in Hanuman Nagar in Patna and found the material there substandard. But B K Singh continues to stay on as the man making payment requests to the DM on BSSIC's official stationery.
**************************************
Guess what Goswami's fig leaf is?
Contacted in Lucknow on Saturday, where he works with Sahara, Goswami was asked why the payments were shown as having made to ''BSSIC'' and why he didn't spell it out. • ''When you pay your insurance premium,'' Goswami replied, ''do you write the full name or just LIC? It is the job of the cashier to remember who has been given the payments.'' On Monday, he was unavailable for comment.
In that case, a little change of taste-obiquely positive news item about Bihar. regards, Vagish
Headline: Bihari's are healthier than Americans!
Washington, April 22 : Based on the findings of a
study, which revealed that rates of self-reported illnesses of people
living in Bihar are lower than those living in America, a doctor in the
recent issue of British Medical Journal (BMJ) has argued that shifting
drug spending from the worried well in affluent countries to those with
treatable disease in poorer countries will benefit everybody's health.
According to Dr. Iona Heath, 70 percent of the Britons are taking
medicines to treat or prevent ill health, or at times, to enhance
well-being.
"How can this level of medicine taking be appropriate in a population
which, by all objective measures, is healthier than ever before?" asks
Dr Iona Heath.
Heath states that rates of self reported illness were surprisingly
lower in Bihar - the poorest state of India - than the United States,
and this suggests that the more people are exposed to contemporary
health care, the sicker they feel.
As the overall health of a population increases, more money can be made
from selling healthcare interventions for the healthy majority than for
the sick minority. For instance, a tax on preventive drugs sold in rich
countries could be used to fund drugs in poor countries, she said.
Heath hopes that the steps suggested by her, if implemented, would benefit people in both rich and poor countries. (ANI)
On 4/25/05, Rajive Acharya <rajivea@...> wrote: > > Good to enlighten us with the scams. > > regards > > rajive >
> >From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...> > >Reply-To: biharchintan@... > >To: Bihar Chintan <
biharchintan@...> > >Subject: [biharchintan] Flood Relief Scam in Bihar-Part II > >Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 08:38:04 +0530 > >
> >Second part of the report of the Indian Express on the Flood relief > >Scam in Bihar. > >Vagish > > > >Indian Express, 25 April 2005 > >THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM - PART II
> >Relief truck sets out with sattu, delivers polythene bags > >BIHAR: Rs 37 lakh for stay of flood relief crew, Rs 11 lakh for their > >snacks while more than 800 drowned and five fell to police bullets in
> >fight for relief > >VARGHESE K GEORGE > >Posted online: Monday, April 25, 2005 at 0221 hours IST > > > >PATNA, APRIL 24: If the Bihar Flood Scam, exposed by The Sunday > >Express yesterday, is a shocking story of relief funds being swindled
> >while more than 800 drowned in the swirling waters last July-August > >and at least five fell to police bullets in relief riots, details of > >how officials cooked up bills to divert money borders on the bizarre.
> >Records maintained by former Patna DM Gautam Goswami, a high-profile > >IAS officer who was selected by Time magazine as an Asian Hero, gives > >away the scandal easily: one truck, for instance, is shown to have
> >carried sattu (roasted gram flour) from Patna to Khagaria while it > >actually delivered polythene bags. > >A shocking string of similar discrepancies have surfaced in the audit > >ordered into the flood relief efforts by Sudhir Kumar, Patna DM, who
> >took charge after Goswami quit the service to join the Sahara group > >four months ago. > >And an investigation by The Indian Express, backed by official > >documents, shows that the Government cannot explain what happened to
> >most of the Rs 17 crore it had spent on flood relief (see box). > >According to sources, an audit by Patna district administration early > >this month has pegged the maximum worth of relief material actually
> >supplied to flood victims between July-August 2004 at Rs 7 crore. > >The movement of relief material is supposed to have been recorded at > >three different places: in a daily despatch register, in receipts
> >collected from destinations and in reports sent to the relief > >commissioner for funds. > >But in most cases, these documents do not match. > >The Indian Express has a copy of one such official document that
> >traces relief material movement on July 22, 2004: > >• The despatch register shows that 18 trucks left for Khagaria and > >Samastipur. As per receipts, 11 trucks reached these destinations
> >between July 22-23. But the list sent to the relief commissioner shows > >that 20 trucks were despatched during that period—in only one case > >does the truck numbers in the despatch register and the receipt match.
> >• Documents show that truck number BR 1C 7600 left Patna on July 22 > >with 4,000 kg of polythene and reached Khagaria next day—with the > >same > >amount of firewood. > >• Receipts reveal that truck number BR 1G 6978 supplied 1.9 tonnes of > >plastic to Khagaria, but in other documents the same vehicle is shown > >to have carried sattu. > > > >Then again, expenditure records on hotels and restaurants show that
> >while the flood victims waited, relief seemed to be flowing in a > >different direction. Consider these: > >• During this period, bills for tea and snacks at Patna's Airport > >Restaurant ran up to Rs 11 lakh in less than a month—another coffee
> >house was paid Rs 2 lakh. > > > >• Maurya, Samrat and Pataliputra hotels were paid Rs 15 lakh, Rs 10 > >lakh and 12 lakh, respectively, for accommodation of IAF crew flying > >relief material.
> > > >But the then Patna DM, Goswami, wrote to the relief department saying > >''nearly Rs 1 crore'' was spent on the crew. Goswami wrote on August > >13: ''We have spent nearly Rs 1 crore on crew members... and another
> >Rs 75 lakh spent on jawans and their vehicles... It may please be > >noted that suppliers and hotels have already submitted bills... and > >their payment is extremely urgent.'' > >No bill from any hotel was, or is, pending with the Patna district
> >administration. > >************************************** > > > >Box Item > >WHAT SURFACED AFTER THE GREAT FLOOD > > > >An investigation by The Indian Express, backed by official documents,
> >showed that Patna's DM Gautam Goswami got Rs 13 crore as flood relief. > >He added another Rs 5 crore which the Chief Secretary alleges were > >diverted from Railway funds. > >Goswami paid Rs 17.18 crore to Bihar Small Scale Industries > >Corporation (BSSIC), the organisation in charge of supplying relief > >material. > >But BSSIC says it supplied material worth only Rs 22 lakh and has so
> >far been paid only Rs 13 lakh. The rest of the money, documents show, > >went to an employee of BSSIC, one B K Singh. > >BSSIC says there is no employee by that name. Reached for his comments
> >in Lucknow, Goswami denied there was a scam and said his name was > >dragged into it because people were jealous of him. > >********************************************* > > > >
> > > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
> get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/biharchintan/ > > <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >
biharchintan-unsubscribe@... > > <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: > http://in.docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > >
Good to enlighten us with the scams.
regards
rajive
>From: vagish Jha <vagishkj@...>
>Reply-To: biharchintan@...
>To: Bihar Chintan <biharchintan@...>
>Subject: [biharchintan] Flood Relief Scam in Bihar-Part II
>Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 08:38:04 +0530
>
>Second part of the report of the Indian Express on the Flood relief
>Scam in Bihar.
>Vagish
>
>Indian Express, 25 April 2005
>THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM - PART II
>Relief truck sets out with sattu, delivers polythene bags
>BIHAR: Rs 37 lakh for stay of flood relief crew, Rs 11 lakh for their
>snacks while more than 800 drowned and five fell to police bullets in
>fight for relief
>VARGHESE K GEORGE
>Posted online: Monday, April 25, 2005 at 0221 hours IST
>
>PATNA, APRIL 24: If the Bihar Flood Scam, exposed by The Sunday
>Express yesterday, is a shocking story of relief funds being swindled
>while more than 800 drowned in the swirling waters last July-August
>and at least five fell to police bullets in relief riots, details of
>how officials cooked up bills to divert money borders on the bizarre.
>Records maintained by former Patna DM Gautam Goswami, a high-profile
>IAS officer who was selected by Time magazine as an Asian Hero, gives
>away the scandal easily: one truck, for instance, is shown to have
>carried sattu (roasted gram flour) from Patna to Khagaria while it
>actually delivered polythene bags.
>A shocking string of similar discrepancies have surfaced in the audit
>ordered into the flood relief efforts by Sudhir Kumar, Patna DM, who
>took charge after Goswami quit the service to join the Sahara group
>four months ago.
>And an investigation by The Indian Express, backed by official
>documents, shows that the Government cannot explain what happened to
>most of the Rs 17 crore it had spent on flood relief (see box).
>According to sources, an audit by Patna district administration early
>this month has pegged the maximum worth of relief material actually
>supplied to flood victims between July-August 2004 at Rs 7 crore.
>The movement of relief material is supposed to have been recorded at
>three different places: in a daily despatch register, in receipts
>collected from destinations and in reports sent to the relief
>commissioner for funds.
>But in most cases, these documents do not match.
>The Indian Express has a copy of one such official document that
>traces relief material movement on July 22, 2004:
>• The despatch register shows that 18 trucks left for Khagaria and
>Samastipur. As per receipts, 11 trucks reached these destinations
>between July 22-23. But the list sent to the relief commissioner shows
>that 20 trucks were despatched during that period—in only one case
>does the truck numbers in the despatch register and the receipt match.
>• Documents show that truck number BR 1C 7600 left Patna on July 22
>with 4,000 kg of polythene and reached Khagaria next day—with the
>same
>amount of firewood.
>• Receipts reveal that truck number BR 1G 6978 supplied 1.9 tonnes of
>plastic to Khagaria, but in other documents the same vehicle is shown
>to have carried sattu.
>
>Then again, expenditure records on hotels and restaurants show that
>while the flood victims waited, relief seemed to be flowing in a
>different direction. Consider these:
>• During this period, bills for tea and snacks at Patna's Airport
>Restaurant ran up to Rs 11 lakh in less than a month—another coffee
>house was paid Rs 2 lakh.
>
>• Maurya, Samrat and Pataliputra hotels were paid Rs 15 lakh, Rs 10
>lakh and 12 lakh, respectively, for accommodation of IAF crew flying
>relief material.
>
>But the then Patna DM, Goswami, wrote to the relief department saying
>''nearly Rs 1 crore'' was spent on the crew. Goswami wrote on August
>13: ''We have spent nearly Rs 1 crore on crew members... and another
>Rs 75 lakh spent on jawans and their vehicles... It may please be
>noted that suppliers and hotels have already submitted bills... and
>their payment is extremely urgent.''
>No bill from any hotel was, or is, pending with the Patna district
>administration.
>**************************************
>
>Box Item
>WHAT SURFACED AFTER THE GREAT FLOOD
>
>An investigation by The Indian Express, backed by official documents,
>showed that Patna's DM Gautam Goswami got Rs 13 crore as flood relief.
>He added another Rs 5 crore which the Chief Secretary alleges were
>diverted from Railway funds.
>Goswami paid Rs 17.18 crore to Bihar Small Scale Industries
>Corporation (BSSIC), the organisation in charge of supplying relief
>material.
>But BSSIC says it supplied material worth only Rs 22 lakh and has so
>far been paid only Rs 13 lakh. The rest of the money, documents show,
>went to an employee of BSSIC, one B K Singh.
>BSSIC says there is no employee by that name. Reached for his comments
>in Lucknow, Goswami denied there was a scam and said his name was
>dragged into it because people were jealous of him.
>*********************************************
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement
Second part of the report of the Indian Express on the Flood relief
Scam in Bihar.
Vagish
Indian Express, 25 April 2005
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM - PART II
Relief truck sets out with sattu, delivers polythene bags
BIHAR: Rs 37 lakh for stay of flood relief crew, Rs 11 lakh for their
snacks while more than 800 drowned and five fell to police bullets in
fight for relief
VARGHESE K GEORGE
Posted online: Monday, April 25, 2005 at 0221 hours IST
PATNA, APRIL 24: If the Bihar Flood Scam, exposed by The Sunday
Express yesterday, is a shocking story of relief funds being swindled
while more than 800 drowned in the swirling waters last July-August
and at least five fell to police bullets in relief riots, details of
how officials cooked up bills to divert money borders on the bizarre.
Records maintained by former Patna DM Gautam Goswami, a high-profile
IAS officer who was selected by Time magazine as an Asian Hero, gives
away the scandal easily: one truck, for instance, is shown to have
carried sattu (roasted gram flour) from Patna to Khagaria while it
actually delivered polythene bags.
A shocking string of similar discrepancies have surfaced in the audit
ordered into the flood relief efforts by Sudhir Kumar, Patna DM, who
took charge after Goswami quit the service to join the Sahara group
four months ago.
And an investigation by The Indian Express, backed by official
documents, shows that the Government cannot explain what happened to
most of the Rs 17 crore it had spent on flood relief (see box).
According to sources, an audit by Patna district administration early
this month has pegged the maximum worth of relief material actually
supplied to flood victims between July-August 2004 at Rs 7 crore.
The movement of relief material is supposed to have been recorded at
three different places: in a daily despatch register, in receipts
collected from destinations and in reports sent to the relief
commissioner for funds.
But in most cases, these documents do not match.
The Indian Express has a copy of one such official document that
traces relief material movement on July 22, 2004:
• The despatch register shows that 18 trucks left for Khagaria and
Samastipur. As per receipts, 11 trucks reached these destinations
between July 22-23. But the list sent to the relief commissioner shows
that 20 trucks were despatched during that period—in only one case
does the truck numbers in the despatch register and the receipt match.
• Documents show that truck number BR 1C 7600 left Patna on July 22
with 4,000 kg of polythene and reached Khagaria next day—with the same
amount of firewood.
• Receipts reveal that truck number BR 1G 6978 supplied 1.9 tonnes of
plastic to Khagaria, but in other documents the same vehicle is shown
to have carried sattu.
Then again, expenditure records on hotels and restaurants show that
while the flood victims waited, relief seemed to be flowing in a
different direction. Consider these:
• During this period, bills for tea and snacks at Patna's Airport
Restaurant ran up to Rs 11 lakh in less than a month—another coffee
house was paid Rs 2 lakh.
• Maurya, Samrat and Pataliputra hotels were paid Rs 15 lakh, Rs 10
lakh and 12 lakh, respectively, for accommodation of IAF crew flying
relief material.
But the then Patna DM, Goswami, wrote to the relief department saying
''nearly Rs 1 crore'' was spent on the crew. Goswami wrote on August
13: ''We have spent nearly Rs 1 crore on crew members... and another
Rs 75 lakh spent on jawans and their vehicles... It may please be
noted that suppliers and hotels have already submitted bills... and
their payment is extremely urgent.''
No bill from any hotel was, or is, pending with the Patna district
administration.
**************************************
Box Item
WHAT SURFACED AFTER THE GREAT FLOOD
An investigation by The Indian Express, backed by official documents,
showed that Patna's DM Gautam Goswami got Rs 13 crore as flood relief.
He added another Rs 5 crore which the Chief Secretary alleges were
diverted from Railway funds.
Goswami paid Rs 17.18 crore to Bihar Small Scale Industries
Corporation (BSSIC), the organisation in charge of supplying relief
material.
But BSSIC says it supplied material worth only Rs 22 lakh and has so
far been paid only Rs 13 lakh. The rest of the money, documents show,
went to an employee of BSSIC, one B K Singh.
BSSIC says there is no employee by that name. Reached for his comments
in Lucknow, Goswami denied there was a scam and said his name was
dragged into it because people were jealous of him.
*********************************************
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 Rajesh Jha wrote :
>
>Federal rule 'improves' Bihar life
>By Amarnath Tewary
>BBC News, Patna
>22 April 2005
>
>Thieves caught in Bihar
>Cracking down on crime is the administration's first priority.
>Not a single case of kidnapping has been reported in over a month in
>Patna, the bustling capital of India's northern state of Bihar, the
>police say.
>
>And only around seven cases of kidnappings have been reported from
>other parts of the state during the period.
>
>That's a marked improvement of law and order in a state where,
>according to police records, a person has been kidnapped every six
>hours since 1992.
>
>That works out to some 30,000 people kidnapped for ransom in the past 13 years.
>
>"We have been able to ward off the prevailing fear psychosis among the
>people of the state. The common man is feeling safe and secure today,"
>Bihar's chief secretary KAH Subramaniun told BBC News.
>
>
>There has been a perceptible change in the work culture. Now disposal
>of files has become fast and the employees come to work on time Subhas
>Sharma, finance secretary. Bureaucrats are attributing the marked
>improvement in Bihar's notorious crime situation to the fact that the
>state does not have a government of its own.
>
>On 7 March, direct federal rule was imposed on Bihar, one of India's
>poorest and most lawless states, as no party or alliance could form a
>stable government after elections.
>
>Under direct - or presidential - rule, India's central government
>rather than local politicians runs a state on behalf of the president.
>
>The regional Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a key ally of the ruling
>Congress party-led federal government which had ruled the state
>without a break for 15 years, lost its majority in the February
>elections.
>
>
>Today Bihar's per capita income is a third of the Indian average,
>nearly half of its 86 million people live in abject poverty, and only
>47.53% of them can read or write.
>
>In recent years crime has soared - a local police report says that the
>1000-odd gangs in the state are raising some $17m every year from
>extortion and kidnapping.
>
>But over a month of federal rule seems to have improved some matters.
>
>More than 15,000 criminals have been arrested and put behind the bars,
>kidnappings were down, and work perked up in government offices.
>
>
>Work culture has improved in government offices
>At the helm of affairs is now the Bihar governor, Buta Singh, a former
>Union interior minister.
>
>Mr Singh, according to officials, has decided that cracking down hard
>on runaway crime was the first priority.
>
>A report on a month of direct rule in the state says the
>administration is taking steps to revive sick industries, filling up
>important government services job vacancies and attending to
>grievances of government employees and teachers.
>
>Non-performing or controversial civil servants and police officers
>have been moved out and replaced.
>
>"All these measures taken have played a vital role in creating a work
>culture and also changing face of the state within such a short span
>of time," said KAH Subramaniun.
>
>
>In the shabby government offices overflowing with tatty files, there
>is a semblance of a return to work ethic.
>
>"There has been a perceptible change in the work culture in the state
>secretariat. Now disposal of files has become fast and the employees
>come to work on time," said Subhas Sharma, secretary finance
>department.
>
>An employee in one department in Gopalganj district says office
>workers have stopped demanding bribes in return for their services.
>
>Governor Buta Singh (l) and bureaucrat KAH Subramaniun are heading the affairs
>
>"For the first time in 15 years the clattering of typewriters can be
>heard and files can be seen moving in government offices," said Sanjay
>Kumar.
>
>Even the British High Commissioner to India, Michael Arthur, was
>upbeat about Bihar's prospects during a recent visit to the state.
>
>"I feel the 40-days of (direct) rule has helped improve the law and
>order situation in the state and if things remain unchanged I am
>pretty confident industrialist from far off places including UK will
>like to invest in this forbidden zone," he said.
>
>Independent analysts agree that there are have been some changes for the better.
>
>Leading social scientist Shaibal Gupta said there had been some
>improvement in matters of public finances, though he believes most the
>changes are really "cosmetic".
>
>"A lot remains to be done," he said.
>
>Veteran socialist leader Luxmi Sahu also believes that there cannot be
>"substantial development without a popular government in the state".
>
>So how long will direct rule last in Bihar?
>
>Bihar has a history of bloody political violence
>Shaibal Gupta says it will not last beyond a year.
>
>Any party or alliance in the fray which can cobble together 122
>members will lead the 243-member state legislature and rule the state.
>
>The RJD lost the elections winning only 75 of the 215 seats it contested.
>
>The Congress party which backed the RJD in a pre-election coalition
>won only 10 of 84 seats it contested.
>
>The rival coalition - an alliance of the Hindu nationalist BJP and the
>regional Janata Dal (United) - also fell short of a majority, winning
>92 of the 241 seats the parties contested.
>
>Both the alliances had been trying to secure the support of the
>regional Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) which won 29 seats and is seen as
>a deciding force in forming the next state government.
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
><*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/biharchintan/
>
><*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> biharchintan-unsubscribe@...
>
><*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
> http://in.docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
Strange Arithmetic of Bihar Politics
by Dinesh Kumar Mishra
The wrangling about 243-seat hung Vidhan Sabha in Bihar amidst President’s Rule in the state goes on unabated. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD) and Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) are spoiling the broth while a minor – but not insignificant role – is played by parties like the Socialist Party ( SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party ( BSP) . The mutual distrust grows but the he magic number 122 for a government is a mirage.
The President’s Rule is from the beginning frail in structure as the Governor Buta Singh has not been able to name the advisors, thanks to the cold war between the supremos of RJD and LJP – Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Bilas Paswan. However ministers and MLAs, defeated in the elections were asked to vacate the official residences. Law and order shows signs of visibility after years together and the street rowdyism is on the decline. ‘Rangdari’ (extortion) business that flourished over the past decade, has already taken a backseat. The public, by and large, in that sense is relieved. Some people feel that the state needs a KPS Gill.
But a more tensed-up situation is looming large when the politicians fail to solve the brain teaser. There are reports from the southern districts of the state of falling water tables, alarming drinking water problem and scarcity-induced migration are coming in. Situation is particularly bad in Gaya, Jehanabad and Bhojpur districts. Floods await the northern part of the state as the repair works on the embankments and canals is yet to o pick up momentum. It is yet to start at many places. No politician, apparently, is bothered about the plight of the people although the Supreme Court heard and thankfully rejected the plea demanding salaries and perks for the elected members of the assembly.
Paswan, for instance, has said nothing about the watery worries that affect the lower castes whose cause whom he and his party LJP claim to champion. He is rather seething in anger against Lalu Yadav as he could never reconcile his position after being refused the post of railway minister in the UPA ministry and settling for a less creamy iron and mines ministry. He planned to avenge the humiliation by weaning away Lalu’s Muslim vote bank RJD and succeeded partly. With 29 elected members, he appeared to hold the key and wanted a Government to be formed that would exclude the BJP (37), and RJD (75). Since Congress has 10 elected members and aligned with RJD instead of LJP as for the UPA, RJD is numerically more important than LJP.
A flawed calculus, made Paswan more desperate against the RJD. His insistence on a Muslim chief minister is a pose as most of the LJP MLAs are caste Hindus and none among his 29 members is a Muslim. Political observers in general doubt whether he can borrow a CM from another party.
If Jharkhand is treated as a precursor of events, every 17th independent member of Bihar is a political party and equal number of ministerial seats would be filled by them irrespective of who forms the government. The CPI (ML) with seven MLAs, followed by three of CPI and CPI(M) remain aloof from Paswan’s political game. They expressed a strong apathy against the Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar’s move to form anti-RJD and anti-Congress government. The CPI(ML) is generally against a government, led by Lalu although figures do not favour the RJD big boss as with his 75 member-strength, his failure is obvious. With ten Congress, 11 communist, three NCP and even 17 Independent MLAs, the RJD can’t reach the magic figure. Moreover, most of the 17 Independent MLAs are anti-Lalu.
In the meanwhile, the centre has allocated a sum of Rs. 356 Crores to raise, strengthen and extend the embankments of the Bagmati and the Kamla. Pity is that it is just an extension of the "outdated embanking technology" of 1947 as environmental imperatives are absent in it. The problem in the state is identified with one of ineffective drainage. Extension of embankment length, width or height impedes the flow. The other culprits are the roads and rails with drainage inadequacy .The canals running into tens of thousands of kilometers have the same congestive disorder. But none talks about the impending manmade disaster at the moment that the people of Bihar are destined to face in coming months.
Will somebody tell the flood victims of Bihar about the fate of the report of the task force, appointed last year after the visit of Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, including follow-ups if at all? Will somebody come and ensure the people of Kusheswar Asthan, Chandauli, Khagaria, Darbhanga, Danapur, Jhanjharpur, Runnisaipur, and Kataunjha that enough foodgrains are stored at respective places instead of last year’s myopic experiment of transporting the same from Patna this time? The essence of National Common Minimum Programme demands that Lalu, Paswan and of course, Sonia Gandhi gear up to take on the crucial issue: the highly probable disaster that may visit hundreds of thousands of people, frequently hit by catastrophe.
Dinesh Kumar Mishra
C-7 Vatika Green City
PO MGMC Dimna Road
Jamshedpur 831018
Everyone loves a good drought and perhaps a good flood too!!!!!!!
Time again for the bounty.
Vagish K. Jha
EXPRESS EXCLUSIVE
THE BIHAR FLOOD SCAM - PART I
Crores meant for Bihar flood victims flowed into babu black hole
High-profile ex-IAS officer Gautam Goswami's role under scrutiny; he
paid Rs 17 cr to govt firm which denies having received it; says
recipient doesn't even exist
VARGHESE K GEORGE
Posted online: Sunday, April 24, 2005 at 0154 hours IST
(Indian Express, April 24, 2005, Delhi Edition)
PATNA, APRIL 23: Floods ravage Bihar's poor every year—last year was
particularly bad. At least 800 were killed in July-August 2004, over
9,300 villages were marooned and 2.1 crore people affected. There were
riots over scarcity of relief, five were killed in police firing.
The then Rabri Devi Government released Rs 13 crore for flood relief.
An investigation by The Sunday Express, backed by official documents,
shows that the Government cannot explain what happened to almost 90
per cent of the money.
Under the scanner is the role of Gautam Goswami, then Patna District
Magistrate. A 1992 IAS officer, he was named by Time magazine, along
with Shah Rukh Khan, as a Young Asian Hero, a ''bureaucrat who helped
flood victims.'' Goswami resigned from the state government this
January to join Sahara Group as a Vice-President.
Official records show that Goswami got Rs 13 crore as relief—he added
another Rs 5 crore which the Chief Secretary alleges he diverted from
Railway funds—and paid Rs 17.18 crore to Bihar Small Scale Industries
Corporation (BSSIC), the sole organisation in charge of supplying
relief material.
So far so good, the numbers add up.
But there's a catch—and this is now the subject of an inquiry. Early
this month, BSSIC said it supplied material worth only Rs 22 lakh and
has so far been paid only Rs 13 lakh!
The rest of the money, documents show, went to an employee of BSSIC,
one B K Singh. He appears in records as the man raising bills and
getting payments from Goswami. BSSIC says there is no employee by that
name.
When contacted, M Prasad, Managing Director, BSSIC, confirmed this to
The Sunday Express: ''We received only around Rs 13 lakh. We do not
have an employee by the name of B K Singh.''
''The money could have been illegally siphoned off,'' admits Chief
Secretary K A H Subramaniam. ''A vigilance inquiry is on.''
What he doesn't mention is that this alleged siphoning of funds
happened under the nose of the state's top bureaucracy. And even when
the first objections were raised, no one called for any inquiry.
Consider the sequence of events:
• The Relief Department of the state government allotted Rs 13.4 crore
for relief under the heads of Evacuation: Rs 3.14 crore, Cash doles:
Rs 5.29 crore; Foodgrains: Rs 5.05 crore
• Goswami, deputed as the nodal officer for the entire state, withdrew
the entire amount in 10 instalments beginning July 12 and ending in
August, 2004.
• The day Goswami received the first installment, he also received a
bill on official BSSIC stationery signed by one B K Singh asking for
Rs 2 crore as advance. Over the next few weeks, Singh begins sending
bills and Goswami orders payments to BSSIC. On July 15, it's of Rs 50
lakh, Rs 1 crore on July 19, Rs 1.2 crore on July 21 and so on. Total:
Rs 17.18 crore.
• On August 14, Goswami reported he had incurred an expense of Rs 56
crore. He had already received Rs 13.4 crore and so he asked for an
additional Rs 43 crore. His breakup: Evacuation: Rs 20 crore, Cash
doles: Rs 8 crore, Foodgrain: Rs 15 crore.
• Goswami attached details of what he called the ''distribution'' of
materials by air and road.
• It was at this stage that the first red flag went up. K K Choubey,
Under Secretary (Audit) in the Relief Department, raised objections to
Goswami's demand based on startling discrepancies in his letter.
• Truckloads of relief were shown as being sent to areas which had no
access by road. The most blatant irregularity, Choubey pointed out,
was that Rs 8 crore was shown as having been paid in cash. Choubey
asked: It's technically possible that bills could be pending for
suppliers of materials but who distributed cash doles in advance and
where did the money for that come from?
• Phuleswar Paswan, Deputy Secretary, Relief Department, endorsed
these objections. Relief Commissioner Chandragupt Ashokvardhan said he
favoured a vigilance inquiry but then proceeded on leave on August 21.
• On September 13, Relief Commissioner-in-charge Shishir Sinha
forwarded the file to Chief Secretary with no comments. Chief
Secretary Subramaniam sat on the file until December 23.
• It was only after the audit wing made inquiries about the file did
Subramaniam return it. With just one noting: ''The relief commissioner
may take appropriate action.''
• On April 4, 2005, new Patna DM Sudhir Kumar wrote to MD, BSSIC
asking if the administration owed them money—Goswami had claimed
payments of Rs 43 crore were pending. Kumar also asked them what
payments have been already received by the BSSIC.
On April 7, BSSIC MD replied: ''We supplied material worth Rs
22,63,500 and received payment of Rs 13,52,221...We have not supplied
anything more. And we have not received any more money than the above
Rs 13,52,221." BSSIC also denied it had any employee by the name of B
K Singh.
Federal rule 'improves' Bihar life
By Amarnath Tewary
BBC News, Patna
22 April 2005
Thieves caught in Bihar
Cracking down on crime is the administration's first priority.
Not a single case of kidnapping has been reported in over a month in
Patna, the bustling capital of India's northern state of Bihar, the
police say.
And only around seven cases of kidnappings have been reported from
other parts of the state during the period.
That's a marked improvement of law and order in a state where,
according to police records, a person has been kidnapped every six
hours since 1992.
That works out to some 30,000 people kidnapped for ransom in the past 13 years.
"We have been able to ward off the prevailing fear psychosis among the
people of the state. The common man is feeling safe and secure today,"
Bihar's chief secretary KAH Subramaniun told BBC News.
There has been a perceptible change in the work culture. Now disposal
of files has become fast and the employees come to work on time Subhas
Sharma, finance secretary. Bureaucrats are attributing the marked
improvement in Bihar's notorious crime situation to the fact that the
state does not have a government of its own.
On 7 March, direct federal rule was imposed on Bihar, one of India's
poorest and most lawless states, as no party or alliance could form a
stable government after elections.
Under direct - or presidential - rule, India's central government
rather than local politicians runs a state on behalf of the president.
The regional Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a key ally of the ruling
Congress party-led federal government which had ruled the state
without a break for 15 years, lost its majority in the February
elections.
Today Bihar's per capita income is a third of the Indian average,
nearly half of its 86 million people live in abject poverty, and only
47.53% of them can read or write.
In recent years crime has soared - a local police report says that the
1000-odd gangs in the state are raising some $17m every year from
extortion and kidnapping.
But over a month of federal rule seems to have improved some matters.
More than 15,000 criminals have been arrested and put behind the bars,
kidnappings were down, and work perked up in government offices.
Work culture has improved in government offices
At the helm of affairs is now the Bihar governor, Buta Singh, a former
Union interior minister.
Mr Singh, according to officials, has decided that cracking down hard
on runaway crime was the first priority.
A report on a month of direct rule in the state says the
administration is taking steps to revive sick industries, filling up
important government services job vacancies and attending to
grievances of government employees and teachers.
Non-performing or controversial civil servants and police officers
have been moved out and replaced.
"All these measures taken have played a vital role in creating a work
culture and also changing face of the state within such a short span
of time," said KAH Subramaniun.
In the shabby government offices overflowing with tatty files, there
is a semblance of a return to work ethic.
"There has been a perceptible change in the work culture in the state
secretariat. Now disposal of files has become fast and the employees
come to work on time," said Subhas Sharma, secretary finance
department.
An employee in one department in Gopalganj district says office
workers have stopped demanding bribes in return for their services.
Governor Buta Singh (l) and bureaucrat KAH Subramaniun are heading the affairs
"For the first time in 15 years the clattering of typewriters can be
heard and files can be seen moving in government offices," said Sanjay
Kumar.
Even the British High Commissioner to India, Michael Arthur, was
upbeat about Bihar's prospects during a recent visit to the state.
"I feel the 40-days of (direct) rule has helped improve the law and
order situation in the state and if things remain unchanged I am
pretty confident industrialist from far off places including UK will
like to invest in this forbidden zone," he said.
Independent analysts agree that there are have been some changes for the better.
Leading social scientist Shaibal Gupta said there had been some
improvement in matters of public finances, though he believes most the
changes are really "cosmetic".
"A lot remains to be done," he said.
Veteran socialist leader Luxmi Sahu also believes that there cannot be
"substantial development without a popular government in the state".
So how long will direct rule last in Bihar?
Bihar has a history of bloody political violence
Shaibal Gupta says it will not last beyond a year.
Any party or alliance in the fray which can cobble together 122
members will lead the 243-member state legislature and rule the state.
The RJD lost the elections winning only 75 of the 215 seats it contested.
The Congress party which backed the RJD in a pre-election coalition
won only 10 of 84 seats it contested.
The rival coalition - an alliance of the Hindu nationalist BJP and the
regional Janata Dal (United) - also fell short of a majority, winning
92 of the 241 seats the parties contested.
Both the alliances had been trying to secure the support of the
regional Lok Janashakti Party (LJP) which won 29 seats and is seen as
a deciding force in forming the next state government.
Graduate education in Bihar has been paralysed by the incursion of politics; genuine scholars are driven away
The universities of Bihar have been under some manner of permanent investigation for the last several years, and one damning indictment only adds more weight to the preceding ones. The more urgently the need for radical reforms, the more disinclined the system is in wanting to change.
Until the early 60s the system of higher education in Bihar was not exactly avante garde but was nevertheless not lagging far behind its time. Colleges of Patna University—whether dedicated to arts or science, engineering or medicine—commanded recognition across the country. Even mofussil districts could boast of at least one college, which produced an IAS officer once in a while, and sent many more to other services and professions. But the surface calm was deceptive and the ubiquitous incursion of politics, which in Bihar often means the struggle for supremacy of castes, had began to assert itself.
In 1983 however it became a matter of official knowledge that higher education was in a terminal state of crisis. The V.S. Jha Committee—set up by the government to investigate the malaise— concluded that education administrators and political elite civil servants were digging higher education’s grave. The Jha Committee made the stern recommendation: ‘‘Bold and hard decisions, some of them unpleasant, are imperative to stem the rot, the alternative is dismal.’’
In 1975, the education administrators of Bihar discovered the wisdom of financing higher education primarily out of the exchequer grants-in-aid. Between 1947 and 1975, 17 colleges were taken over by the government; between 1975 and 1978 the number was 286. Many of these colleges would fall in the category of colleges of which the V.S. Jha Committee report says, ‘‘Starting a college is a gainful business, provided you are a political boss or a public nuisance.’’ Given the great demand for education such institutes, started in gross violation of rules, would nevertheless, find admission seekers flocking in great numbers.
College teaching became a sought after source of employment for the mediocre wives and heirs of illustrious people, but it proved to be a great demotivator for the deserving who had deliberately opted for teaching as a career. There was a marked deterioration in quality. It also killed private initiative and led to the retreat of the scholarly community. Politics led to the induction of its closest ally: Crime.
It seems not much notice was taken of the Jha committee report and the progressive deterioration gathered momentum. The investigation into the fraudulent award of one such MA degree to an influential person under the orders of the division bench of the hon’ble Patna High Court in 2000 pointed to the academic underworld where vice-chancellors, judges, senior all India service officers, and academic ‘‘don’’ or ‘‘don’’ academicians are on easy terms with commerce.
The Jha report, when referred to during the investigation, gave a curious sense of deja vu and the extant investigation amassed more evidence of the same under more varied genre. Asked to broadbase the investigation, the investigating team was constrained to put before the court its moral dilemma. The chain of corruption was so long that who should be called into account and how had become a problem.
The investigation also debunked the myth of paucity of funds. From 1995 to 2000, Bihar’s expenditure on higher education was much higher than some of the progressive states and in one particular year it was very close to the NEP recommendation of 6 per cent of total outlay. Seminal to the issue was the flight of capital to the buccaneering ways of the elite. Their sins are now visited on their children who flock to educational centres of Delhi, Pune, and Bangalore and even smaller places like Kota and Bhopal seeking admission. Finding their own world destroyed, they are forced to become refugees.
plz send me editorial for ur bollywood for you.
shahbaz
________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online
Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Dear Pushpendra Bhai,
Great initiative indeed. I will try to make it at least for the last
few days, though I would have loved to be a part of Itihas Yatra. My
best wishes. Tell me if I can do anything from Delhi for this.
Thanks,
Vagish
On Apr 5, 2005 9:25 AM, pushpen <pushpen@...> wrote:
>
>
> Dear Friends,
> On behalf of the organising committee of PAHAL, I am writing to
> invite you to a social forum that some organisations are organising
> in Patna from 12th to 25th April 2005. The event is named "PAHAL
> 2005".
> There will be Itihas Yatra, debate, discussions, public hearings,
> consultations, cultural events including film festival and festival
> of street plays during this period. A detailed list of programme is
> given at the end of this mail. In brief, the programmes are:
> a) 12-22 April - Itihas Yatra by eminent historians of Bihar,
> starting from Patna and passing through 13 districts of Bihar. The
> purpose is to inculcate a progressive view towards history and fight
> against the growing influence of communal forces.
> b) A festival of documentary films in Patna from 19th to 21st
> April. Shows will be organised in different colleges in Patna and
> will generally be followed by discussions with the audience.
> c) 23-25 April - a social forum in Patna which will include 22
> seminars/workshops/consultations/public hearings during the span of
> three days. These will be on some of the most important issues
> facing the poor and the marginalised today in Bihar.
> d) Festival of Street Plays - This will take place during April 23-
> 24, every day in the evening for 2 hours.
>
> The entire event is dedicated to the memory of Sarita and Mahesh,
> the two social workers who were killed by criminals last year in
> Gaya for raising voice against local power lobbies.
>
> The deliberations will be documented and the output will also result
> in publications of a few books, reports, short documentaries, and
> above all, a civil society charter of demands on each of the issues
> which will later be submitted to the Governor through a civil
> society representation.
>
> The event also falls during the Global Week for Education
> programme. Preceeding to PAHAL, the Right to Food Campaign is
> organising a Bihar state level convention on 22nd April.
>
> Apart from eminent personalities from Bihar, till date following
> persons have given their consent to participate - Prabhas Joshi,
> Venkat Reddy, KN Panniker, JPS Uberoi, Anand Kumar, Maulvi
> Vahiuddin, Kamleshwar, Amod Kanth, Kunika, Govind Chandra Pandey and
> Justice BP Singh.
>
> I take the opportunity to invite you for the event. Please join us.
>
> With warm regards.
> Pushpendra and the organising committee
>
> April 23, 2005
>
> Inaugural Session Challenges of Social Activism in the Present
> Context 10 AM to 1 PM Bhartiya Nritya Kala Mandir, Frazer Road,
> Patna by PAHAL 2005 Organising Committee
> Parallel Session-1 Colloquium on Social Relevance of Religion (I)
> 2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall-II,
> Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Aman Sadbhavana Abhiyan, Patna
> Parallel Session-2 People's Hearing on Hunger
> 2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall-I,
> Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Samajik Sodh Evam Vikas Kendra,
> East Champaran
> Parallel Session-3 River Linking Project: Whose Agenda It Serves?
> 2 PM to 5 PM Patna Museum Hall Patna by Nadi Vapsi Abhiyan &
> helplinebiharflood
> Parallel Session-4 Globalisation and Culture
> 2 PM to 5 PM Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna
> by Hinsa Ke Virudh Sanskritikarmi, Bihar
> Parallel Session-5 Right to Education (Equity, Excellence and
> Social Justice): Legal and Policy Framework
> 2 PM to 5 PM Nalanda Open University BISCOMAN Building,
> West Gandhi Maidan, Patna by East and West Society, Patna
> Parallel Session-6 Campaign against Violence and Corruption
> 2 PM to 5 PM Youth Hostel, Fraser Road, Near Hotel Maurya, Patna
> by Jan Chaukidar, Patna
> Cultural Programme: Street Plays and Songs 4 PM to 7 PM
> Safdar Hashmi Rangbhumi, Gandhi Maidan by Hinsa Ke Virudh
> Sanskritikarmi
>
> April 24, 2005
>
> Common Session Bihar : Agony, Aspirations and Struggles
> 10 AM to 1 PM Kalidas Rangalaya, South East Gandhi Maidan, Patna
> by PAHAL 2005 Organising Committee
> Parallel Session-1 Colloquium on Social Relevance of Religion (II)
> 2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – II
> Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Aman Sadbhavana Abhiyan, Patna
> Parallel Session-2 Joint People's Initiative on Water Management (II)
> 2 PM to 5 PM Patna Museum Hall,
> by Nadi Vapsi Abhiyan & helplinebiharflood
> Parallel Session-3 Challenges before Dalit Movements
> 2 PM to 5 PM Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna
> by Ambedkar Mission, Patna
> Parallel Session-4 Right to Education (Equity, Excellence and
> Social Justice): Administrative Reforms
> 2 PM to 5 PM Nalanda Open University BISCOMAN Building,
> West Gandhi Maidan, Patna by East and West Society, Patna
> Parallel Session-5 National Health Policy and Bihar
> 2 PM to 5 PM Youth Hostel, Frazer Road, Near Hotel Maurya, Patna
> by Center for Health and Management, Patna
> Parallel Session-6 Labour Movement in the Era of Liberalization
> 2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – I
> Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Patna Trade Union Coordination
> Committee
> Cultural Programme Street Plays and Songs 4 PM to 7 PM
> Safdar Hashmi Rangbhumi, Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Hinsa Ke Virudh
> Sanskritikarmi
>
> April 25, 2005
>
> Parallel Session-1 Struggle for Land Rights
> 10 AM to 1 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – I
> Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Bhoo Adhikar Morcha and Ekta
> Parishad Bihar
> Parallel Session-2 Public Hearing on Shelter Rights
> 10 AM to 1 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – II
> Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan, Patna
> Parallel Session-3 Struggle of Pasmanda Muslims
> 10 AM to 1 PM Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna
> by Pasmanda Muslim Mahaj, Bihar
> Parallel Session-4 Right to Education (Equity, Excellence and
> Social Justice): State Plan of Action
> 10 AM to 1 PM Nalanda Open University BISCOMAN Building,
> West Gandhi Maidan, Patna by East and West Society, Patna
> Parallel Session-5 Women's Movement in Bihar: Challenges Ahead
> 10 AM to 1 PM Indian Medical Association Hall, South East Gandhi
> Maidan, Patna by Samata Gyan Vigyan Samiti, Bihar
> Parallel Session-6 Communalism and Imperialism
> 10 AM to 1 PM Youth Hostel, Frazer Road, Near Maurya Hotel, Patna
> by Al-risala Promoters Center, Patna
> Parallel Session-7 Crisis of Development and People's Science
> 10 AM to 1 PM Bihar Industries Association, Opposite Sinha
> Library, Patna by Science for Society, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
>
> Concluding Session An Agenda for Pro-poor Politics
> 2 PM to 5 PM Kalidas Rangalaya, Southeast Gandhi Maidan, Patna
> by PAHAL 2005 Organising Committee
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
Today is 6th April and it is a very significant day in the history of the flood victims of Bihar. It was on this day, on the 6th April 1947, a public meeting was held in Nirmali (Dist Supaul in North Bihar bordering Nepal) that a promise was made by the leaders of the country, who were sensing independence, that the problems of the floods of the Kosi needs to be looked into and that a dam would be constructed across the Kosi at Barahkshetra in Nepal and all the problems facing the people will be solved, thus. This meeting was attended by no less a person than Dr Rajendra Prasad, who later became the first president of the country. He wished that he would live long enough to see the smiles on the faces of the people of the Kosi Basin and that the river, notorious for its vagaries, would be tamed and a new era of prosperity would dawn on the people of this area.
He was ably supported by his colleague C.H.Bhabha, then member planning at the center, who was of the view that nothing could be done till then because the engineers were undecided on how to tame this river and their opinion, too, was swinging like the course of the river itself. Since engineers were not firm on their ground, the member was apologetic that in the absence of such an advice, it was not possible for the Government to proceed in the right direction. The dilemma then was whether to construct embankments along the river like the one existing along the Mississippi or the Hwang Ho. The member termed these embankments along the rivers as one confirming to “outdated technology”. The right direction, according to him, was the one shown by the Tennessee Valley Authority of the USA and its Indian version, the Damodar Valley Corporation. That was the reason why Bhabha advocated the construction of the Barahkshetra Dam on the Kosi that was originally proposed by Jimut Bahan Sen, the PWD secretary of Bihar in 1937.
There was, however, no money to construct the Barahkshetra Dam and the “out dated technology” was adopted in 1953 by the Government and the Kosi was trapped between the embankments. It is trapped ever since although it broke its shackles in 1963 (Dalwa in Nepal), in 1968 at Jamalpur (Dist Darbhanga), in 1971 at Bhatania (Dist Supaul), in 1980 at Bahuarawa (Dist Saharsa), in 1984 at Hempur (Dist Saharsa), in 1987 at Ghonghepur and Samani (Dist Saharsa) and finally at Joginia in Nepal, in 1991. The breach at Joginia precipitated a major political crisis as the minister for Water Resources; Govt. of Bihar, resigned his post because he had promised on the floor of Bihar Vidhan Sabha that he would resign his post if any of the embankments in state breached.
Embankments, in Bihar, breach with alarming regularity. They breach even if there is no local rainfall. A good rain in upper catchments in Nepal is a fair justification for the embankments to breach. This leads to usual mud slinging between the State Government and the Center and entertains people if there are different parties at the helm of affairs at these places. The season for breaches is approaching fast and the leaders of various political parties in Bihar are busy with their strange arithmetic of permutations and combinations. Unless they solve their sums correctly, they cannot pass through the portals of Vidhan Sabha and form the Government.
In the meanwhile, the center has allocated a sum of Rs. 356 Crores to raise, strengthen and extend the embankments of the Bagmati and the Kamla. This is just an extension of the “outdated embanking technology” of 1947. The problem in the state is identified with that of the smooth drainage but what is attempted in the field results in obstructing the same. Extension of embankments length, width or height impedes the flow. The other culprits are the roads and railway lines without proper drainage and so are the canals whose length runs into tens of thousands of kilometers. No one is talking about the impending manmade disaster at the moment that the people of Bihar are destined to face in coming months.
Will somebody tell the flood victims of Bihar what happened to the report of the task force that was appointed last year after the visit of Man Mohan Singh and what actions are taken to safeguard the interest of the people? Will somebody also tell the people of Kusheswar Asthan, Chandauli, Khagaria, Darbhanga, Danapur, Jhanjharpur, Runnisaipur, and Kataunjha that enough food grains are stored at respective places and it will not have to be transported from Patna this time? Will the people living on the embankments not be threatened with evacuation in the name of raising and strengthening of the embankments? Will the victims of erosion of the banks of the river, all along the state, get a recognition that that the Government is aware of their problems and adequate steps will be taken to reduce their sufferings? Will somebody ask the politicians, both at the center and the state, why did they not chant the Barahkshetra Mantra after the month of November, last year till date? Will the expert committee on Interlinking of Rivers tell people of Bihar what solution they have for the problem of floods facing the people of Bihar since the Government is going slow with the Himalayan component of the River linking? Will anybody tell the people of Bihar why Barahkshetra Dam on the Kosi is not built despite ‘fruitful negotiations’ for the past so many decades and if its construction is absurd, why nothing is being done to face the floods locally?
Just as we do not talk about the floods and ask these questions in the dry season, we are not left with any option to than to face them silently in the rainy season.
Dinesh Kumar Mishra
Convenor-Barh Mukti Abhiyan
C-7 Vatika Green City
PO MGMC Dimna Road
Jamshedpur 831018
Today is 6th April and it is a very significant day in the history of the flood victims of Bihar. It was on this day, on the 6th April 1947, a public meeting was held in Nirmali (Dist Supaul in North Bihar bordering Nepal) that a promise was made by the leaders of the country, who were sensing independence, that the problems of the floods of the Kosi needs to be looked into and that a dam would be constructed across the Kosi at Barahkshetra in Nepal and all the problems facing the people will be solved, thus. This meeting was attended by no less a person than Dr Rajendra Prasad, who later became the first president of the country. He wished that he would live long enough to see the smiles on the faces of the people of the Kosi Basin and that the river, notorious for its vagaries, would be tamed and a new era of prosperity would dawn on the people of this area.
He was ably supported by his colleague C.H.Bhabha, then member planning at the center, who was of the view that nothing could be done till then because the engineers were undecided on how to tame this river and their opinion, too, was swinging like the course of the river itself. Since engineers were not firm on their ground, the member was apologetic that in the absence of such an advice, it was not possible for the Government to proceed in the right direction. The dilemma then was whether to construct embankments along the river like the one existing along the Mississippi or the Hwang Ho. The member termed these embankments along the rivers as one confirming to “outdated technology”. The right direction, according to him, was the one shown by the Tennessee Valley Authority of the USA and its Indian version, the Damodar Valley Corporation. That was the reason why Bhabha advocated the construction of the Barahkshetra Dam on the Kosi that was originally proposed by Jimut Bahan Sen, the PWD secretary of Bihar in 1937.
There was, however, no money to construct the Barahkshetra Dam and the “out dated technology” was adopted in 1953 by the Government and the Kosi was trapped between the embankments. It is trapped ever since although it broke its shackles in 1963 (Dalwa in Nepal), in 1968 at Jamalpur (Dist Darbhanga), in 1971 at Bhatania (Dist Supaul), in 1980 at Bahuarawa (Dist Saharsa), in 1984 at Hempur (Dist Saharsa), in 1987 at Ghonghepur and Samani (Dist Saharsa) and finally at Joginia in Nepal, in 1991. The breach at Joginia precipitated a major political crisis as the minister for Water Resources; Govt. of Bihar, resigned his post because he had promised on the floor of Bihar Vidhan Sabha that he would resign his post if any of the embankments in state breached.
Embankments, in Bihar, breach with alarming regularity. They breach even if there is no local rainfall. A good rain in upper catchments in Nepal is a fair justification for the embankments to breach. This leads to usual mud slinging between the State Government and the Center and entertains people if there are different parties at the helm of affairs at these places. The season for breaches is approaching fast and the leaders of various political parties in Bihar are busy with their strange arithmetic of permutations and combinations. Unless they solve their sums correctly, they cannot pass through the portals of Vidhan Sabha and form the Government.
In the meanwhile, the center has allocated a sum of Rs. 356 Crores to raise, strengthen and extend the embankments of the Bagmati and the Kamla. This is just an extension of the “outdated embanking technology” of 1947. The problem in the state is identified with that of the smooth drainage but what is attempted in the field results in obstructing the same. Extension of embankments length, width or height impedes the flow. The other culprits are the roads and railway lines without proper drainage and so are the canals whose length runs into tens of thousands of kilometers. No one is talking about the impending manmade disaster at the moment that the people of Bihar are destined to face in coming months.
Will somebody tell the flood victims of Bihar what happened to the report of the task force that was appointed last year after the visit of Man Mohan Singh and what actions are taken to safeguard the interest of the people? Will somebody also tell the people of Kusheswar Asthan, Chandauli, Khagaria, Darbhanga, Danapur, Jhanjharpur, Runnisaipur, and Kataunjha that enough food grains are stored at respective places and it will not have to be transported from Patna this time? Will the people living on the embankments not be threatened with evacuation in the name of raising and strengthening of the embankments? Will the victims of erosion of the banks of the river, all along the state, get a recognition that that the Government is aware of their problems and adequate steps will be taken to reduce their sufferings? Will somebody ask the politicians, both at the center and the state, why did they not chant the Barahkshetra Mantra after the month of November, last year till date? Will the expert committee on Interlinking of Rivers tell people of Bihar what solution they have for the problem of floods facing the people of Bihar since the Government is going slow with the Himalayan component of the River linking? Will anybody tell the people of Bihar why Barahkshetra Dam on the Kosi is not built despite ‘fruitful negotiations’ for the past so many decades and if its construction is absurd, why nothing is being done to face the floods locally?
Just as we do not talk about the floods and ask these questions in the dry season, we are not left with any option to than to face them silently in the rainy season.
Dinesh Kumar Mishra
Convenor-Barh Mukti Abhiyan
C-7 Vatika Green City
PO MGMC Dimna Road
Jamshedpur 831018
Dear Friends,
On behalf of the organising committee of PAHAL, I am writing to
invite you to a social forum that some organisations are organising
in Patna from 12th to 25th April 2005. The event is named "PAHAL
2005".
There will be Itihas Yatra, debate, discussions, public hearings,
consultations, cultural events including film festival and festival
of street plays during this period. A detailed list of programme is
given at the end of this mail. In brief, the programmes are:
a) 12-22 April - Itihas Yatra by eminent historians of Bihar,
starting from Patna and passing through 13 districts of Bihar. The
purpose is to inculcate a progressive view towards history and fight
against the growing influence of communal forces.
b) A festival of documentary films in Patna from 19th to 21st
April. Shows will be organised in different colleges in Patna and
will generally be followed by discussions with the audience.
c) 23-25 April - a social forum in Patna which will include 22
seminars/workshops/consultations/public hearings during the span of
three days. These will be on some of the most important issues
facing the poor and the marginalised today in Bihar.
d) Festival of Street Plays - This will take place during April 23-
24, every day in the evening for 2 hours.
The entire event is dedicated to the memory of Sarita and Mahesh,
the two social workers who were killed by criminals last year in
Gaya for raising voice against local power lobbies.
The deliberations will be documented and the output will also result
in publications of a few books, reports, short documentaries, and
above all, a civil society charter of demands on each of the issues
which will later be submitted to the Governor through a civil
society representation.
The event also falls during the Global Week for Education
programme. Preceeding to PAHAL, the Right to Food Campaign is
organising a Bihar state level convention on 22nd April.
Apart from eminent personalities from Bihar, till date following
persons have given their consent to participate - Prabhas Joshi,
Venkat Reddy, KN Panniker, JPS Uberoi, Anand Kumar, Maulvi
Vahiuddin, Kamleshwar, Amod Kanth, Kunika, Govind Chandra Pandey and
Justice BP Singh.
I take the opportunity to invite you for the event. Please join us.
With warm regards.
Pushpendra and the organising committee
April 23, 2005
Inaugural Session Challenges of Social Activism in the Present
Context 10 AM to 1 PM Bhartiya Nritya Kala Mandir, Frazer Road,
Patna by PAHAL 2005 Organising Committee
Parallel Session-1 Colloquium on Social Relevance of Religion (I)
2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall-II,
Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Aman Sadbhavana Abhiyan, Patna
Parallel Session-2 People's Hearing on Hunger
2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall-I,
Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Samajik Sodh Evam Vikas Kendra,
East Champaran
Parallel Session-3 River Linking Project: Whose Agenda It Serves?
2 PM to 5 PM Patna Museum Hall Patna by Nadi Vapsi Abhiyan &
helplinebiharflood
Parallel Session-4 Globalisation and Culture
2 PM to 5 PM Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna
by Hinsa Ke Virudh Sanskritikarmi, Bihar
Parallel Session-5 Right to Education (Equity, Excellence and
Social Justice): Legal and Policy Framework
2 PM to 5 PM Nalanda Open University BISCOMAN Building,
West Gandhi Maidan, Patna by East and West Society, Patna
Parallel Session-6 Campaign against Violence and Corruption
2 PM to 5 PM Youth Hostel, Fraser Road, Near Hotel Maurya, Patna
by Jan Chaukidar, Patna
Cultural Programme: Street Plays and Songs 4 PM to 7 PM
Safdar Hashmi Rangbhumi, Gandhi Maidan by Hinsa Ke Virudh
Sanskritikarmi
April 24, 2005
Common Session Bihar : Agony, Aspirations and Struggles
10 AM to 1 PM Kalidas Rangalaya, South East Gandhi Maidan, Patna
by PAHAL 2005 Organising Committee
Parallel Session-1 Colloquium on Social Relevance of Religion (II)
2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – II
Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Aman Sadbhavana Abhiyan, Patna
Parallel Session-2 Joint People's Initiative on Water Management (II)
2 PM to 5 PM Patna Museum Hall,
by Nadi Vapsi Abhiyan & helplinebiharflood
Parallel Session-3 Challenges before Dalit Movements
2 PM to 5 PM Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna
by Ambedkar Mission, Patna
Parallel Session-4 Right to Education (Equity, Excellence and
Social Justice): Administrative Reforms
2 PM to 5 PM Nalanda Open University BISCOMAN Building,
West Gandhi Maidan, Patna by East and West Society, Patna
Parallel Session-5 National Health Policy and Bihar
2 PM to 5 PM Youth Hostel, Frazer Road, Near Hotel Maurya, Patna
by Center for Health and Management, Patna
Parallel Session-6 Labour Movement in the Era of Liberalization
2 PM to 5 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – I
Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Patna Trade Union Coordination
Committee
Cultural Programme Street Plays and Songs 4 PM to 7 PM
Safdar Hashmi Rangbhumi, Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Hinsa Ke Virudh
Sanskritikarmi
April 25, 2005
Parallel Session-1 Struggle for Land Rights
10 AM to 1 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – I
Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Bhoo Adhikar Morcha and Ekta
Parishad Bihar
Parallel Session-2 Public Hearing on Shelter Rights
10 AM to 1 PM A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Hall – II
Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna by Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan, Patna
Parallel Session-3 Struggle of Pasmanda Muslims
10 AM to 1 PM Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Northwest Gandhi Maidan, Patna
by Pasmanda Muslim Mahaj, Bihar
Parallel Session-4 Right to Education (Equity, Excellence and
Social Justice): State Plan of Action
10 AM to 1 PM Nalanda Open University BISCOMAN Building,
West Gandhi Maidan, Patna by East and West Society, Patna
Parallel Session-5 Women's Movement in Bihar: Challenges Ahead
10 AM to 1 PM Indian Medical Association Hall, South East Gandhi
Maidan, Patna by Samata Gyan Vigyan Samiti, Bihar
Parallel Session-6 Communalism and Imperialism
10 AM to 1 PM Youth Hostel, Frazer Road, Near Maurya Hotel, Patna
by Al-risala Promoters Center, Patna
Parallel Session-7 Crisis of Development and People's Science
10 AM to 1 PM Bihar Industries Association, Opposite Sinha
Library, Patna by Science for Society, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha
Concluding Session An Agenda for Pro-poor Politics
2 PM to 5 PM Kalidas Rangalaya, Southeast Gandhi Maidan, Patna
by PAHAL 2005 Organising Committee
Send Email
Offline 
.S. Tarun
