Bihar has recorded 142% more than the normal rainfall expected in the month of June. According to the Indian Meteorological Department, between June 1-26, Bihar had recorded 307 millimetre (mm) rainfall, which is 180 mm more than normal (127 mm) during this period. Due to unexpected excess rains, many areas from the flood-prone regions are already submerged, with several people fearing the repeat of last year’s situation when the state had been ravaged by severe floods.Laxman Jha, who is looking after the state’s flood cell told The Wire, “Bagmati, Budhi Gandak and Kamala Balan rivers are flowing above the danger level at some gauge stations. Water discharge of Kosi river at Birpur barrage has been recorded at 1,19,385 cusec, whereas in Gandak river around 1,26,500 caused water discharge was recorded at Valmiki Nagar barrage and is showing an increasing trend.”However, since the last week of June, many areas are under the grip of floods. In the last 10 days, floodwaters have entered several villages within the embankments in the Kosi area.Saidi village in the Rahui block of Nalanda district in Bihar’s Magadh region, where flood is not a normal phenomenon has been submerged due to sudden water level rise in the Panchane river. The Panchane river originates from Chota Nagpur plateau and moves to Bihar through Gaya, Nawada Nalanda. Local resident Suresh Prasad Yadav said that water had entered the village for the last one week, but there is no help from the administration.Also read: Watch | ‘Bihar Floods a Political Disaster Not a Natural One’On the other hand, many villages of Bettiah in the West Champaran district are also in the grip of flood. The breach of the Sikta embankment has caused floods in these villages. Tulsi Sharma, the mukhiya of Akhara Baishkhawa panchayat, told The Wire, “There are nine villages under my panchayat. A knee-deep water has entered the agricultural fields of these villages, completely ruining the paddy saplings.”A man carrying drinking water for his family, as heavy rains have submerged many parts of Bihar.On June 30, the Belwa panchayat of West Champaran was submerged with floodwater from Pandai river. Belwa panchayat has four villages. Raj Kumar Shukla who had brought Mahatma Gandhi to Champaran for Satyagraha was from this panchayat. Panchayat resident and mukhiya Shahid Parvez told The Wire, “Around five feet deep flood water has entered the houses. Four houses have damaged in the flood. People have taken shelter in village schools and on the roofs of pucca houses. We have not yet got any relief from the administration.”“We had requested the administration to conduct anti-erosion work on the river 15 days ago, but they didn’t,” he alleged.Many villages in Muzaffarpur, which are hit by floods more or less every year due to the Gandak and Bagmati rivers, have been flooded in June itself. Shanti Devi, mukhiya (chief) of Husepur Ratti panchayat of Sahebganj block in the district, said, “Flood water has entered houses in many wards of my panchayat. Water had entered a week ago and remained stagnant in the houses for five days. After this the water started coming out, but it has been raining for the last three days resulting in deluge again.”She said that some government officials had come to inspect, but there was no help from their side.Similarly, many villages in Gopalganj and Seemanchal districts are facing floods. However, the state government has officially not accepted that floods have hit Bihar.Last week, Congress leader and MP Rahul Gandhi had tweeted and expressed his sympathy to flood-affected families of Bihar. “This disaster is a big tragedy in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. I appeal to the colleagues of Congress to join the relief work. Steps should be taken to provide help to the people – this is the real ideology of Congress,” he had written on his Twitter page.Criticising Rahul Gandhi over this tweet, state water resources minister Sanjay Jha had said, “Dear Rahul Gandhiji, it seems you have been misinformed about the floods in Bihar. Nothing has happened so far and in view of heavy rains, we are not ruling it out. However, you are intelligent enough to differentiate between waterlogging and flooding. Please avoid confusing the difference between the two.”However, experts say that Sanjay Jha’s statement is only an attempt to hide his department’s failure as waterlogging is the result of floods.An attempt was made to contact Sanjay Jha as well as the water resources department officials in this regard, but there has been no response from their side.‘No timely action’As the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) prepared by the Bihar government regarding pre-flood preparedness, it has been clearly stated that all the approved works of repair and strengthening of embankments and Zamindari dams in flood-prone areas will have to be completed by June 15, because it is around this time monsoon reaches Bihar.But in many places, the repair work has not been taken up despite local people urging for the same.The Buxar-Koilwar embankment has not even been repaired, due to which the villagers are afraid. People say that if repair work is not taken up immediately, the embankment may breach anytime causing floods in several villages.Also read: Bihar: In Flood Ravaged West Champaran, Locals Disillusioned With Elections, LeadersUjjwal Kumar, a resident and social activist of Ramnagar block of West Champaran told The Wire, “We had given a written application to the district administration on May 22 for anti-erosion work on the Masan river, but no action was taken up.” As a result of this, 40 acres of land of the farmers got destroyed due to erosion.Overflowing Masan river in Bihar’s Champaran.Masan is a left bank tributary of the Burhi-Gandak river. The Burhi-Gandak originates from West Champaran and joins the Ganga River in Khagaria.Not only this but crops were also ruined due to the ingress of huge amounts of sand with river water in the fields.Javed Alam, 47, a farmer from Mohbi village in Ramnagar block, said, “My 3-4 kottah of farmland have gone into erosion, while three bighas agricultural fields where I had planted sugarcanes, entirely destroyed. Due to this, I have lost Rs 1 lakh. Had the administration got the anti-erosion work done in time, the damage would not have happened.”Floods almost every year cause huge economic losses in Bihar. More than two dozen districts of Bihar are flood-prone. A committee of the Ganga Flood Control Commission (GFCC) had listed 39 districts across the country as the worst-affected districts by floods. Of these, 14 districts are from Bihar.Due to floods from 2010 to 2019, crops worth Rs 2,02,517.64 lakh had destroyed and 2,308 people died in the state due to floods, according to the water resource department. At the same time, there was a loss of public property worth Rs 4,30,59.82 lakh during the same period.Dinesh Mishra, who has been working on Bihar floods for a long time, said, “The negligence in preparing to deal with floods in time happens every year. Preparations for flood protection should be done in May itself because many times there have been floods in May also. But this does not happen and every time the government makes excuses by saying this time the flood had come early.”Heavy rains in June unusual Heavy rain in June is an unusual phenomenon in Bihar. According to experts, due to excessive moisture formation in the Bay of Bengal and its arrival with the wind, Bihar has recorded heavy rains in June.Professor Pradhan Partha Sarathi, associated with the School of Earth, Biological and Environmental Science in Central University of South Bihar (CUSB), told The Wire, “After two cyclones from Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, we were expecting the monsoon to come late and rains will be less as the humidity completely disappears due to the cyclone. It takes 15 days for the moisture to build up again, the kind of rain that Bihar has received in June actually happens in July.”“But this time it has not happened. Moisture is building very fast in the Bay of Bengal and the wind speed is towards Bihar, so this moisture is coming to Bihar and it is raining here,” Professor Parth Sarathi said.Also read: Floods in Bihar Destroyed 7.54 Lakh Hectares of Agricultural Land This YearAbdus Sattar, an agro meteorologist at the Dr. Rajendra Prasad Agricultural University, said that this time the monsoon had also arrived on time and the low-pressure area is continuously forming, hence there has been a lot of rain in June. He said that comparatively less rain is being forecast for July.Longer water stagnation cause worryFloods are not new for Bihar. Its history is centuries old. Earlier during the floods, water used to stay stagnated for just three to four days. It did not cause much trouble to people. But, now the flood water remains stagnant in the villages and agricultural fields for two to two-and-a-half months which causes a big economic loss.Jeevan Sharma, a resident of Husepur Ratti, told The Wire, “Earlier there used to be floods four to five times during the rainy season, but only for three to four days, but last year when there was flood, the water remained stagnant for 40 days. I have never seen flood waters stagnate for so many days in my life.”Experts said that due to the construction of the embankments, during the flood season, the water comes out of the embankments, but when the water level of the rivers starts decreasing the flood water is not able to return to the river due to the embankment.Dinesh Mishra said that in such a situation, drainage systems are very important to reduce the effect of flood, but no such effort is being made at the government level.“I wrote to the Ministry of Jalshakti in December 2015 that floods were not a big problem for the people earlier in the rainy season, as the waters used to recede in a few days, but now the water stagnates for a long time. This problem can be solved through the drainage system. I had suggested in writing to set up a drainage commission and conduct research on the drainage system,” Dinesh Mishra told The Wire.“In the year 2016, I got a reply that my suggestion regarding drainage is welcome, but till now the drainage commission has not been formed. This clearly indicates how serious the government is about preventing floods,” he lamented.Umesh Kumar Ray is an independent journalist.
