Millions are left devastated & marooned but still no plan in place to check FLOODS from being an annual catastrophe .
Bihar is India's most flood-prone state, with 76% population in the Northern Bihar are living under the recurring threat of flood devastation while the government has built over 3000 km of embankments in Bihar over the last few decades, but the flooding propensity has increased by 2.5 times during the same time period, not to mention that embankments failed during each major flooding event !
Bihar introduced its first flood policy in 1954 , the state then had approximately 160 km of embankments and the flood-prone area in the state was estimated to be 2.5 million hectares. And surprisingly upon the completion of the embankments of about 3,465 km the amount of flood-prone land increased to 6.89 million hectares in 2004 which is evident enough that we are moving in the wrong direction !
There is not any one or a particular reason for the flood that has became an annual affair in the lives of millions of biharis, deforestation, excessive silting, banana trees at the banks of Ganges ,even farakka barrage looks like a contributor apart from the “scape goat” reason that Nepal allows the water flows into the major drainages of Narayani, Bagmati, and Koshi rivers, inflating them that leads to flood , but whats the solution to this disaster every year .
Maybe technically wrong but former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sensitive to the issue hence suggested & professed the idea to connect rivers ending this problem for ever; but sadly even his party is not keen on giving it a thought leave aside his political opponents !
