The Hindu : Front Page : When Kosi did the unexpected

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

When Kosi did the unexpected

Manisha Jha and Sandeep Dikshit

PURNIA: The blame game for the misery being faced by the lakhs of people of Bihar is on. Politicians are charging each other with negligence, leading to the bursting of the dam over the Kosi in Nepal, just across the border.

The war of words is being fought not just in Delhi and Patna, but even in the apathetically-managed relief camps that political parties have set up.

But people in the know say it is not just a simple case of the Kosi changing its course. The inundation can also not be termed a flood. True, the Kosi is notorious for changing its course since its recorded history from the mid-eighteenth century. The last time it swung away from the existing course was over 60 years ago. But each time, the movement was from west to east. That is, further away from the border with West Bengal and a little more into the heartland of north Bihar or Mithilanchal as it is called.

This time when the embankment at Kusaha in Nepal gave way, the waters for the first time moved west. There was no course for the three-km-long vast sheet of water to fall into. It simply followed every available shallow channel in the gradually sloping terrain. Then when these pathways proved inadequate, it spread itself across villages and districts on its way to the Ganga that has been Kosi’s final destination, irrespective of the courses it has charted out over the centuries.

And now, a bigger threat looms. Some 10 km downstream from the breached Kusaha is the Bhimnagar barrage. Kosi, like several other tributaries that flow into the Ganga and other mighty rivers of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, tends to swell in October. It is then that the adequacy of the Bhimnagar barrage will be tested.

The Kosi is being described as the river of sorrow. That is hardly the case. All rivers in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and further downstream in West Bengal tend to overflow their banks. A common sight on the train from Patna to Begusarai is the unending miles of water during this season with the cones of submerged power transmission towers providing the only optical relief.

It is the same with the Kosi, as also the Mahananda, Ghagra, Gandak, Gomti and several others flowing into the Ganges. People living near these rivers simply pick up their belongings and walk away when these rivers brim over. They return to fields caked with alluvium, on which the next crop will thrive, and ponds full of water and fish.

If the Kosi this season is the river of sorrow, the distress is hardly nature’s fault. The blame squarely lies with the managers of our policies and those who implement them.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page