Bihar Floods - Urgent Appeal to Indian President

Smt. Pratibha Patil,
Honble President,
Republic of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi

Urgent Appeal for Intervention in Man-Made Flood Disaster in Bihar

Dear Madam President,
As you are aware, the people of large tracts of Bihar are facing devastating floods. Several million people have lost their homes. The situation is grim in over 900 villages with the districts of Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura and Araria the worst affected.

Bihar is one of the most flood-affected states of India. This has been a longstanding problem, but half-hearted flood control measures, and haphazard development plans have aggravated the problem.

The Chief Minister of Bihar Shri Nitish Kumar and the Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh have both termed the floods to be a natural calamity in Nitish Kumars words, a pralay (mythical apocalyptic deluge). Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that the flood disaster which is devastating the lives of millions, is entirely man-made a creation of decades of criminal callousness and negligence on part of governments both in Patna and Delhi. We the undersigned wish to draw the following to your attention:

The Bihar administration launched relief and rescue operations more than a week after the first breach developed in the Kosi embankment, and till date, there remains an acute shortage of basic facilities like rescue boats and polythene sheets, and food is yet to reach most of the affected people.

Repair and maintenance work on the Kosi barrage and the embankment along the Kosi river were supposed to be the responsibility of the Bihar Government, according to the bilateral agreement with Nepal in 1954. Any attempt on the part of India to escape responsibility by blaming Nepal is baseless, and cannot in any way help the people of Bihar.

The notion propagated by the Bihar Chief Minister that this year the discharge of water was of catastrophic/deluge proportions is a myth: it is poor maintenance and consequent weakening of the embankment that is at fault. This year the Kosi embankment has broken with the discharge of less than 1.5 lakh cusecs of water; in 2004, it broke at 2.68 lakh cusecs; in past years, it has been known to withstand up to 9 lakh cusecs.


Plans for flood management, chalked out right from independence, have not been implemented in 61 years. Ever since 1947, flood control measures for the Kosi river have been debated even on the floor of Parliament. The 1951 Bhabha plan for the Kosi suggested developing an integral planning framework embracing all the major rivers of the region and evolving measures like dams, check dams, barrages, reservoirs, canals and reopening the old natural links among the rivers. Unfortunately the Flood Control Policy of 1954 was restricted to building embankments, and the original Bhabha plan was subsequently discarded on the pretext that funds were not available, and that the electricity which would be generated was not needed! Today the Indian government is going for a Nuclear Deal in the name of power shortage; why has the Bhabha plan not been implemented in all these years? The Central and Bihar Governments must answer for the failure to implement any comprehensive flood-management strategy despite yearly tragedy in Bihar.

Each year in the name of maintenance of the old embankments and construction of many more unnecessary new embankments, crores of rupees are spent to serve the interests of a nexus of engineers, politicians and contractors. The Government of Bihar has, over the years, constructed 3438 km of embankments on various rivers. But a permanent resolution of the problem has never been seriously addressed, either by the Centre or the State government.

Successive Bihar governments have retrenched thousands of seasonal and casual workers in the department responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of embankments. These workers are local inhabitants whose job was to collect information regarding the piping, breaches and erosion on the embankments. Now embankment security has been abandoned with the retrenchment of these workers. Due to silting, riverbeds have become higher, while the height and strength of embankments remains unchanged. No steps are being taken to overhaul the riverbeds. Such neglect of basic preventive measures is nothing but criminal negligence.

The recommendations of the Sanyal Committee have been ignored. Following the devastation caused by floods in 2007, an expert committee set up by the Bihar Government and headed by N. Sanyal recommended restoration of existing embankments to their proper profiles and levels as a top priority; and observed that there is an urgent need to enhance the funds for maintenance of embankments to the required standards. In addition, it had suggested that the Government procure driving sheet piles and geo-textile bags to be air-dropped during floods as emergency measures to boost the embankments. None of the suggested measures were acted upon.

Relief operations during floods have been a source of loot for successive Bihar governments. This year, too, people deprived of relief have angrily accosted the few leaders of ruling political parties who have toured the villages (most have confined themselves to aerial surveys) because they are starved of relief while corrupt officials make hay while the rain pours!

We appeal to you to intervene urgently in the matter, and ensure that
a) Immediate relief (rescue boats, polythene sheets, food, and medical care) is made available to the people of the affected areas
b) Comprehensive measures are adopted for river management and flood control
c) Proper maintenance of embankments with the latest materials and equipment be taken up as a priority

In addition to this, we appeal to you to order a judicial enquiry into the negligence by Governments at the Centre and State which have resulted in the devastating dimensions of the recurrent flood problem in Bihar.

Hoping for your urgent attention and intervention,