Bihar govt to table Walia panel report on Kosi floods

The Bihar government on Tuesday said it will table the Walia Commission report on the causes of embankment breach in Kosi River that had resulted in massive inundation 6 years ago in which over 250 people lost their lives, during the ongoing Monsoon Session of the Assembly.

The announcement was made by Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi in the Legislative Assembly, when he intervened during a war of words between Leader of Opposition Nand Kishore Yadav and Water Resources Minister Vijay Chaudhary.

Mr. Yadav was insisting on tabling the report during the ongoing session of the Assembly.

But the Minister said it was a lengthy report which had to be first approved by the State Cabinet before tabling in the House and was also non-committal on a time-frame for tabling the report.

Mr. Chaudhary later told reporters that the State government was not shying away from tabling the report along with an Action Taken Report on the tragedy and assailed the BJP for trying to score political points over the issue.

The one-man commission of Justice Rajesh Walia was set up in September 2008 to probe the cause of an embankment breach in the Kosi River which triggered floods in Bihar in 50 years, at least 250 and rendering nearly three million people homeless.

The Commission of Justice Walia, a retired chief justice of Patna High Court, got several extensions before submitting its report now.

On August 18, 2008 the Kusaha embankment near the Indo-Nepal border on Kosi River breached, flooding five districts of north Bihar. More than three lakh houses were destroyed and at least 8.40 lakh acres of crops were damaged.

A relief of Rs. 5 crore was provided by then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi for rehabilitation of Kosi flood victims, which was returned by his then counterpart in Bihar, Nitish Kumar, following some newspapers advertisements put on by Mr. Modi.

Enraged over the issue, Mr. Kumar who then headed the NDA government in Bihar, had cancelled a dinner for BJP leaders in 2010 during their national executive meeting here.