A 100 years later...same story!

DECEMBER 21, 1907		SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
INDIAN MIRROR		BUSINESS STANDARD
“The East Indian Railway was constructed in 1853-54 and opened in 1855. To protect the East Indian railroad from Burdwan onwards, a high embankment was constructed on the east bank of Damodar to stop the floods. Wherever embankments were thrown up, tanks and artificial lakes were choked with weeds and the crops suffered from want of fertilising silt. Scarcity and famines have become more frequent and severe, and cases of fever increased. … The villages were full of healthy inhabitants and people prospered… All this was changed when the Damodar was embanked to stop the inundation. …there was no malaria in the villages from Calcutta to Chagda. At the end of the rains there would be a few cases of fever but no malaria, as seen in the last 30 years and more… Malaria broke out one year after the construction of the railway, obstructing the natural drainage of the country eastward on account of inadequate and insufficient waterways in the railway embankment…”		“The jacketing or embanking of the river systems in north Bihar must go down as among the most ill-thought out schemes in Independent India… The plan was to introduce about 150 kilometres of embankment on the Kosi to protect a declared ‘flood prone’ area in the state of some 25 lakh hectares. Today, some 50 years later, north Bihar is a warren of over 3,500 kilometres of embankments, with the declared ‘flood prone’ area having crossed a staggering 75 lakh hectares. …most expert opinion warns against pursuing the embankment route to tackle perennial overflowing or swing in a river’s temperament, as it would impede natural drainage… The initial embankments, eight feet high, converted the Kosi bed into a catchment area for silt. Today, Kosi flows a good 25 to 30 feet above ground level… The river basin is way above ground level and water cannot flow upwards. The inundated villages between as well as outside the embankments stay water-logged for months on end, leading to rise in soil salinity, water-borne diseases and producing hordes of migrant labour.
FLOODS are not new to India. People living in flood-prone areas knew how to turn this menace into a blessing. But then, the saga of decay of this valuable tradition began...