In the duration of four days, 30 September – 3 October, three main rivers Kosi, Gandak and Bagmati and other lesser rivers of Bihar had breached their embankments across 16 districts of the state.
Lakhs of people across 429 villages have been affected. The floods have rendered nearly 12 lakh people homeless. Thousands of displaced residents face severe shortages of relief materials, with many forced to shelter under makeshift plastic coverings. Meanwhile, hundreds stranded on thatched-bamboo and tin roofs in submerged villages were still waiting a week later for rescue teams. Those who were reached by the rescue and relief teams are still huddled in shelters, vulnerable to water-borne diseases and barely surviving on air-dropped food packets.
The people of Bihar face disastrous floods almost every year. Besides the loss to human lives, the state government incurs an annual cost of about Rs. 1,000 crore in damages to crops, infrastructure, loss of livestock, and rehabilitation expenditure.
The state’s Disaster Management Authority has categorised floods into four classes. The first are flash floods; the second are river floods; the third category is drainage congestion in river confluence and the fourth category is the permanently water logged area. Each category has a lead time from the time of warning before the rivers get flooded and a corresponding time before the flood waters recede.
A major reason for the first three kinds of flooding is that Bihar is located below Nepal, with the Himalayan rivers flowing down through the state. Because the Himalayas are a young mountain range with a lot of loose soil, these rivers — Kosi, Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Bagmati, Kamla Balan, Mahananda, Adhwara — are full of sediments. Thus, when the volume of water increases due to rains, the rivers quickly overflow their banks. The recent heavy rains in Nepal 26-29 September were the immediate cause of these deadly floods.
It should be expected that given this knowledge and experience, successive governments would take the steps necessary for preventing such disasters. There have been numerous proposals to address the problem of flooding. However, people’s life experience in India is that there is a huge gap between planning and implementation.
Soon after independence, in the 1950s, embankments were built along the Kosi to contain its flow. Not only have the embankments been breached several times, they have created a new problem of narrowing the course of the river. Thus, while the Kosi earlier had the option to distribute its sediments, now it is in a straitjacket. With nowhere for the sediments to go, the river’s bed has been rising by about 5 inches a year, making it more prone to overflowing.
For decades, the proposal of a dam on the Kosi has been mooted, but the excuse given is that this has not been done because it needs the agreement of Nepal. So, the plan has not progressed.
The Himalayan rivers flowing from Nepal through Bihar finally reach the Bay of Bengal after passing through West Bengal and Bangladesh. It stands to reason that the government of India must sit with the governments of Nepal and Bangladesh to work out an arrangement that will be beneficial for the people of all three countries. There is every possibility for flood management given the development of science and technology. It is possible to understand trends and predict climate risks, regulate encroachment of riverbanks and inform people about the possible dangers of floods in riverbank settlements. The required investment must be made to avoid the loss of human lives, which is an irreparable cost.
The people of Bihar have a right to security of life and property which must be guaranteed by the state.
What is preventing the solution to the problem is that the Indian state has never put the need to ensure the wellbeing of the people on priority, What is put as priority is the drive of the capitalists for maximum profits. Floods, famines, drought, etc., are occasions for capitalists to make maximum profits at the cost of the people in the name of “providing relief”, or taking measures to control floods.