BIHAR WATER POLICY ON ANVIL

TAP IT AS FLOWS INTO OCEAN

Bihar is a land of paradoxes. The northern part of the state is flooded with both under and surface water whereas; the southern and central part of the province not so lucky and richly endowed with this resources. But at the same time the north Bihar bears almost invariably every year the brunt of rivers like Kosi, Adhwara groups, Bagmati, Kamal balan etc. the districts falling under this region experience wrath of the virulent and furious rivers every year leaving hundreds dead and extensive damages. This year also, the state is marked by this dichotomy and paradox. The 26 districts of central and north Bihar have been declared drought hit whereas about 6-7 districts have been facing wraths of flood fury. The people of Bihar have accepted this state of affairs as nature’s injustice to them, but government, this time, seems determined to fight to finish this natural calamity once for all.

It is therefore and under this backdrop, the Government of Bihar is coming out with a comprehensive water policy very soon.  A draft has already been prepared by the Water Resource Department (WRD) and put to website for inviting suggestion from across the board and people at large. In fact, during the last year’s unprecedented flood in North Bihar caused by Kosi River, which devastated the socio-economic fabric of almost entire northern region of the state, necessitated the government to evolve such policy with respect to water management and flood control. The extensive damage caused by this flood, which according to many was nothing short of a catastrophe, had evoked public debate in the media and in government circles also. Many experts suggested that merely doing some anti-erosion and embankment strengthening would not work. A plethora of suggestions in forms of articles, columns and seminars were put into public domain regarding flood control and disaster management. It was during this period the details of steps suggested by the engineers and civil servants during British government also came up for discussion. Only few months ago, Rajendra Singh and Sandip Pandey, both Magsaysay award winner came to Bihar and delivered speech. They suggested ways to conserve and manage water resources. They were particularly averse to the idea of taming rivers by way of construction of dams and embankments. The duo was in favour of allowing the rivers to flow their natural courses.    

The ‘Saharsa Gazetteer’ a valuable document, which entails details about the flood control, safety of embankment of rivers etc, also drew government’s attention. Many engineers and experts are of the opinion that the government’s apathy and neglect towards these old but precious documents, which according to them are as valuable as anything and adoption of strategies on adhoc basis has allowed the situation to go from bad to worse.    

Taking cue from all such documents and suggestions, the govt has decided to formulate a comprehensive water policy of the state so that strategies to tackle the problems related to rivers are evolved. The objectives of this proposed policy are

·      Irrigation and flood management so that flood devastation is mitigated

·      To evolve water drainage system in the affected areas

·      Development of river basin system and transfer of river basin from excessive water availability area to scanty water availability area. The idea is to transfer water from north to south region of the state

·      Strengthening river embankment to tame the fury of river

·      Interlinking river on lines of river linking mega project of national government.

·      Deepening of river and de-siltation of rivers

·      To treat north and south Bihar rivers on different footing and evolve different strategies for these rivers.

·      Recycling of underground water and evolve and formulate rain water harvesting rules and laws. The excessive exploitation of underground water especially by commercial enterprise are sought to be regulated and the government is determined to enact law related to it also.

·      Evolve multi-sectoral approach  etc

Officials connected with the WRD say that the CM is committed to give final shape to this policy very soon and like to announce it on republic day celebration on 26^th January, 2009.