Bihar Flood means “distribution of food packets, compensation, aerial surveys by leaders, and misuse of government funds in the name of raising heights and plug-ins of embankments, highways, and roads.”

The state is flood- and drought-hit at the same time, complicating response and relief.

Bihar flood is a warning sign for Nitish Kumar

The Congress lost power in Bihar after worst of all floods in 1987. Lalu Prasad’s RJD was voted out after 2004 flood. Warning for Nitish Kumar is that people compare the current flood in Patna with that of 1975.

Flood is considered more as a natural calamity than a man-made disaster. In Bihar, it can also be a political disaster and tragedy. In the post-Congress Bihar, two major regime changes were accentuated by floods.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has blamed nature – excessive rain – for the flood fury and not the lack of preparedness of the government or “poor response” from the state agencies.

The centre gov under PM Modi have an eagle eye on Bihar politics as there is state election next year.

Bihar is still rain-deficient.

Before the flood, it was drought.

Year after year floods cause turmoil in Bihar but the government is not paying sufficient attention to water management. It is ironic to see that the people of Bihar never looked at its rivers as “disasters”. The river used to bring happiness and joy, prosperity and natural beauty and is not like today when it brings death and destruction. After flood, there are only snakes and scorpions here and there. It is not safe for people or their family.

Bihar Flood Highlight: Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modi, family rescued 3 days after being stranded

Cause of Bihar Flood:

In Bihar, major rivers are encapsulated with embankments which are constructed on their sides to protect the village but this causes the riverbeds to rise as the silt cannot spread.

Is the unprecedented water levels of Ganga that has flooded Bihar and UP an avoidable flood disaster? What role did the water releases from different dams in the upstream and Farakka Dam in the downstream play in this? Is the poor maintenance of embankments and absence of a silt management policy for the Ganga and Koshi worsened the situation?

Our elected governments do not keep records of the movement of the river. They just believe in raising embankments, levees, roads, and highways to stop flood and, above all, nobody is held accountable for the floods.”

Prevention efforts should be directed towards working in sync with nature.

Many areas of Bihar traditionally had – chaurs, a natural depression to be used as a natural detention basin for flood water restoration and that can be utilized later in the year. Chaurs helped lessen the intensity of floods. But over the years, rapidly increasing population, rising urbanization, and mismatched planning without taking into consideration the natural contours of water sources and the flow, have meant almost void water storage, which leads to greater than before flooding, which in turn leads to more destruction.

Lack of information at the grassroots level and faulty planning and the attitude of policymakers, and to some extent people too, towards dealing with floods worsen the condition too in dealing with the floods.

Information outreach is inadequate. Large scale migration of male members for jobs from these districts concludes mostly children, women and the elderly who are left to deal with day-to-day situations and modern signals such as early flood warnings fail to reach this segment. They are either not literate or not with so strong physically to counter against the natural calamity at the time of quick retaliation response.

People have survived these floods for years. Centuries of wisdom and experience had taught them how to live with the floods. The silt would bring in fertile soil that would enrich their fields after the water receded. Dams actually changed this. Embankments were constructed without considering the natural flow of the river.

Faulty Planning of embankments has caused increased frequency of flooding because of the accumulation of rainwater and river back-flow in between the embankments and not of if not because of actual rivers spilling over. Thus medicine becomes the pain and finally, that hurts the most.

Damming a Himalayan river may bring temporary succor but in the long term, the fragile unstable Himalayan geology, prone to earthquakes and landslides and rapid snow-melting due to global warming, these are not the correct solutions. The landslides and earthquakes send in a lot of debris in the rivers, causing the river bed to rise.

Local knowledge of flood and meteorological forecasting

If a dam breach happens, the resulting flood would be far more devastating.

“The floods are caused by the runoff of extremely heavy rainfall during the monsoon and high sediment loads from upper watersheds that are geologically unstable and degraded because of deforestation and changing land use. The flood combined with river erosion has a significant impact each year.

In 2008 during a high flow episode a breach in the East Koshi afflux embankment above the dam occurred and the Koshi River, known for centuries as the Sorrow of Bihar, picked up an old channel it had abandoned over 100 years previously near the border with Nepal and India.

Policymakers had advocated increased use of dams and embankments. But dams and embankments have caused disfigurement in the natural course of rivers in modern times.

Nepal is a mountainous region. When heavy rains occur, the water flows into the major drainage and these rivers cross into India they flow into the plains and lowlands of Bihar and break their banks. Rivers flowing towards Bihar originate in the highest regions of the Nepal Himalayas and, crossing very small distance, rapidly reach the plains of Bihar, making them far more forceful. 76 percent of the population in the state’s north lives under recurring threat of flood devastation.

Farrakha Barrage; Interception in the energetic balance of the river hindering the natural fluctuation of the river within its meandering belt. The water level rose about 8 m upstream of the Farakka barrage. The river which flowed in a South Easterly course between Rajmahal and Farakka during the early decades of this century has now formed a mighty meander loop concentration to accommodate the additional discharge accumulated due to the barrage. Due to the obstruction caused by the Barrage million tons of silt is accumulated in the riverbed. Deforestation in the catchment area has also led to an increase in the silt content of the river flow.

Various Observations and recommendations:

• Flood affected areas will continue to remain submerged underwater for several months and affected people will remain in the relief camps at least for the next 4 months.
• Appropriate food is needed for children, pregnant and lactating women.
• Safe drinking water and ORS to prevent diarrhea and water-borne diseases are other pressing needs.
• Since most of the families have lost everything, there is urgent need to provide them a kit with basic materials
  like utensils, sanitary napkins, matchboxes, candles, torchlight, etc.
• Efforts are needed to ensure the safety and security of women in the camps by improving general conditions in the camps in terms of sanitation, lighting, and water.
• Since agricultural land has been submerged, ensuring food security needs attention.
• Coordination between NGOs and Government is a priority issue at the field level.

What Next…>>>to Counter Bihar Flood

With climate change making monsoons more intense and floods harder to predict, state governments are struggling to recalibrate their disaster management plans.

A number of structural measures can be taken up to control the flood:

• Retention Basins: Locally called chaurs which act as detention basins. These chaurs absorb a considerable amount of water of the first flood of the season. No man-made detention basins or improvements in natural chaurs has been done. But due to population explosion, these chaurs are in condition of extent.
• Embankments: All the rivers have been embanked in the state. River Kosi is embanked on both the sides. But there are few gaps in these embankments which reduce its effectiveness. The maintenance and repair of these embankments must be taken into account.
• Channel Improvement: Linking of rivers, which leads to the transfer of surplus water to the body having no or very little water.
• Flood management:

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