The Hindu Business Line : Running scared of a river

Decades ago, the people of Bihar looked forward with hope when the foundations were laid for the construction of the Kosi embankments to tame the turbulent river. Half a century and several breaches later, with nearly a million people trapped between the two embankments, and another larger populace living in constant fear of being washed away every monsoon, all hopes of a better future have been belied forever. The seeds of the deluge that assumed unprecedented proportions with the recent breach in Kushaha on August 18 were actually laid many decades ago.

This book, written by Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra, a civil engineer from IIT-Kharagpur who has been researching on the Kosi project since 1984, comes at a time when the Kosi has clearly exposed the futility of grandiose schemes to harness the free flow of rivers in the subcontinent. It has meticulously researched how repeated breaches and resultant floods have made a mockery of the government’s flood control policy.

Birth of a project

The Government of India’s formal approval to the Kosi Project in 1953 led to the construction of 125-km long embankments on the eastern bank of the Kosi from Birpur to Kopadia and 126-km long embankments from Bhardah in Nepal to Ghonghepur in Saharsa on the western bank. The embankments were supposed to protect 2.14 lakh ha from recurring floods. A barrage was also constructed near Birpur in 1963 to facilitate irrigation of 7.12 lakh ha through the Eastern Kosi Main Canal. Another canal, called the Western Kosi Canal, is under construction to irrigate an additional 3.25 lakh ha of cropland on the western side of the barrage, and is scheduled to be completed in 2009.

But the report of an evaluation study of the Kosi project undertaken in 1977-78 by the Programme Evaluation Cell of the Planning Commission is revealing. Although the project had succeeded in protecting 1.6 lakh ha against recurrent floods and prevented the loss of Rs 6-10 crore a year, and cultivated area within the embankments had nearly doubled, the cultivated area in the protected countryside had reduced considerably because of waterlogging. There was an almost uniform decline in the per hectare yield of paddy. Even as the area under paddy increased between the embankments, the yield suffered due to sand casting. Of course, the report was made much before the 1981 breach at Bahuarawa and the 1984 breach at Hempur had occurred.

As the author points out, when India adopted its First Flood Control Policy, embankments in Bihar totalled just 160 km, with the flood-prone area being limited to 2.5 Mha. By 1992, the embankments covered 3,465 km, and could partially protect 2.9 Mha from flooding. As against this, the flood-prone area had steadily risen to 6.88 Mha by 1994. With Jharkhand having separated from Bihar, only 3,430 km of embankments remain with Bihar now. Yet, the flood-prone area in the State continues to stand at 6.88 Mha. Matters have come to such a head that many local families have made the embankments their home.

Sediment load

One of the most important rivers in Nepal, the Kosi has the highest ranges of the Everest and the Kanchenjunga as its watershed. Made up of seven major tributaries in Nepal, it is referred to as the Saptakosi. After entering the plains, it traverses about 50 km in Nepal before entering Indian territory at Bhim Nagar in Supaul district of Bihar. It then flows through Saharsa district to ultimately join the Ganga at Kursela (in Katihar district). The Himalayan ranges are geologically nascent and made up of a lot of loose soil, with landslides and earthquakes being common here. Owing to the heavy load of sediment it carries, the river changes course within short periods of time.

There are several abandoned channels that bear testimony to the meandering nature of this river. The main stream of the Kosi took a turn towards Hanuman Nagar in 1942, and until 1948 the Tilyuga was its main channel. After the construction of the Kosi embankments in the late 1950s, a major portion of the Tilyuga flows within the embankments. Interestingly, it is this development that is the root cause of the present problems plaguing this river.

Floods in India were always considered the best means to rejuvenate the soil and improve its fertility. The spreading of the waters of swollen rivers with the carnivorous larvae-eating fish they brought in its wake was also seen as the best method to keep diseases like malaria at bay. However, unused to such massive rivers as they saw in India, the British baulked and thought of flood control through dams and embankments. Breaching of local zamindari embankments, which was a regular practice during the rainy season, was also never understood or abided by as a measure to control floods. This was how the dam on the Damodar river came to be built. But once the folly committed was realised, the British refrained from other similar measures.

As the author explains, “the British Government did not want to tread into the embankment trap... But in independent India, the politicians had a political compulsion to do something and do it immediately and hence they did not mind constructing embankments. This was the reason, probably, that the engineers preferred to go along with the politicians and sacrificed their right to express any independent opinion… that position was abandoned to the politicians.” Of course, earlier proposals for a dam at Barahkshetra or at Belka were thrown out, for fear of seismic activity

Political pressures

The detailed maps of the proposed Kosi embankments were published in January 1955 by the Bihar government. But the original plans were hardly followed finally. Neither was there any attempt to consult the locals. When people realised that they would lose home and hearth to the Kosi waters, a lot of political pressures were brought in to change the original plan. Ultimately, what resulted was a technologically inadequate project that would hardly serve the purpose it was meant for. What’s more, indigenous knowledge of the river was totally ignored in favour of a project that never took the river’s meandering movements and tendency to chart new courses into consideration. There were major breaches in the embankments, the first of which happened in 1963, a year prior to the project being actually completed. At times, destiny played a providential role in preventing a tragedy. But the fear has always been palpable. Meanwhile, the increasing load of sedimentation has resulted in the riverbed getting raised and the Kosi flowing at a level higher than the villages around. Thus, the 2008 floods have actually struck at a time when there was hardly much rainfall received or too much deforestation to contend with. It was the highly raised riverbed that was the main cause.

many voices

The book is meticulous in recording the history of flood control in general, and the Kosi embankment project in particular. The research is comprehensive, the maps well-detailed, and the two decades of work that went into the book is evident in the first-person accounts of senior engineers involved in the planning and execution of the project, the contractors involved, the farmers who lost their land to inundation, as also those who hobnobbed with the political bigwigs to save their villages from falling within the embankment area. Detailing the problems faced by the people living in a perpetually waterlogged neighbourhood, the author captures the grim reality that the ‘temples of modern India’ brought for our unfortunate rural brethren. Most significantly, Dr Mishra has used the last chapter in his book to list a set of survival strategies that could be taught to farmers in the waterlogged areas of the embankment, on lines similar to what is followed in places like Assam.

However, the author could have explained better as to how the people’s initial enthusiasm regarding the project slowly turned to frustration. The Nepalese factor has been generally neglected too. One cannot ignore the fact that the ups and down in Nepal-India relations did have some bearing on the Kosi waters and the manner in which people in both countries suffered. Our refusal to take the present Nepalese government into confidence has already come under criticism from many quarters. There also seems a cautious denial in examining the effect of the receding Himalayan glaciers on the Kosi and other rivers, although this has been a point of concern with climatologists in recent times.

Besides, the surfeit of data mars the readability of the book, although the stark photographs succeed in bringing out the poignancy of life in the affected region.

In spite of these inadequacies, the book is essential reading for all those who would like to understand the problems inherent in taming our turbulent Himalayan rivers, and the need to never venture beyond small, manageable dams and embankments.

Trapped! Between the Devil and Deep Waters
The Story of Bihar's Kosi river
By Dinesh Kumar Mishra
Publishers: People's Science Institute/ South Asian Network of Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), New Delhi.
Price: Rs 595

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Coping with floods
Flood death toll touches 57; villages in 10 dists water-logged

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