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रांची सं प्रकाशित ' द पायनियर' पेपर मे कार्यरत श्री विजय देव झा जीक लेख...


Which Kosi playing disaster? Natural Kosi or political Kosi


- Vijay Deo Jha


Every time flood takes toll on the life of people and the both central and state governments affirm to take a decisive actions to control the flood. Things go on like that and we the people of Mithilanchal prepare ourselves for the next calamity.


It is no time of chest beating or staging Rudali. We the people of this proud region live in amnesia. We tend to forget the injustice partiality the political party played with us. We do not have qualm if our Mithilanchal is being trampled and kept backward for some political and PERSONAL GRUDGE.


If I am not wrong and kindly correct if there is some discrepancy in the fact that the then British Government had planned for an effective embankment of the river Kosi and created a corpus of Rs. 50 Crores for that. The project was shelved during the rule of Pandit Nehru. The same funds were diverted for the construction of Bhakra Nangal Dam in Punjab after the great famine in this reason. The people of this region (women) gheraod the PM who diverted the fund meant for the construction of Kosi dam. The interest of Mithilanchal was sacrificed for the benefit of Punjab.


No Congress crying and Lalu Rama can solve our problem. The Congress which feels so much pain and sent Rahul Baba for the moral boost up of the flood affected people might not be aware of the mischief that her grand ma and great grand father played with Mithilanchal. There was only tall figure in Mithila- late Laxam Jha who had the temerity to expose Mrs. Gandhi. This man of his model (Maithili people love to call him Batah, mad as a mark of reverence) started campaign to for a permanent solution to this problem and advocated the canalization and proper embankment of Kosi.


The cunning Congress headed by late Lalit Narayan Mishra, former Railway Minister started a whisper campaign against Jha and termed him a lunatic who was playing with an absurd idea of taming river Kosi. Congress might have forgotten this. Please do not cut a sorry figure and do not feel ashamed off Congressmen if I made you to remember you your hoary past.



7 टिप्‍पणियां:

  1. 'Political Kosi or Natural Kosi' I read the article written by Vijay dev jha. I appreciate his article. His contents are true but he is very tough and hard in his approach. He wanted to say some thing more by writing in capital letter PERSONAL GRUDGE. But how can he write so hard about Lalit Babu. He is a legend who sacrifised his life for the development for Mithila. But me too need to check the fact. Thanks to him for exposing this fact.

    जवाब देंहटाएं
  2. sir what will the sollution? every year we effected from flood and cry for relief and since many years politics has been going on mithilanchal flood. is any movement needed to sollution?

    जवाब देंहटाएं
  3. उत्तर
    1. I thought after reading this article you might have got fair idea about solution but after I narrated you entire story of Ramayana you are asking me a basic question whose daughter is Sita?

      हटाएं
  4. Article written in response to an esteemed reader EK AUR KAAM

    Vijay Deo Jha
    The Pioneer
    In response to my first article on Kosi one of the esteemed reader EK AUR KAAM asked me for a solution.
    Well from the last 60 years the team of expert engineers and politicians are tiggering their cells to find solution. Well I am not an expert. But one need not to be an expert to find solution. I wrote, tried to expose the misdeeds of the politicians and 'The Great Theatricals on Flood' staged by the politicians trying to show their gaudy sentiments before the lakhs of helpless people. Still, still you are searching for solution. I am refering to an excerpt. Kindly go through it. Thank you for writing your comments

    Kosi carried a maximum of 9, 13,000 cusecs on October 5, 1968 when the western embankment broke at five places in Darbhanga. The embankments were designed to accommodate a flow of 9,50,000 cusecs.
    This year Kosi was carrying 1,44,000 cusecs when it breached the embankment. It was silted up. Inadequately maintained, the embankment breached at one-seventh its capacity. Is that nature’s fury?
    Blaming Nepal is a face saving device; the responsibility for maintaining embankments rests with Bihar’s Water Resources Department.
    Yes. In 1963 and 1968, rats and foxes were accused of making holes in the embankment. In 1971, the river was blamed. The culprits in 1980 and 1984: lack of roads to transport boulders to reinforce embankments. In 1991, the embankment had eroded but the water receded fast. Had Kosi been a foot higher, 2008 would have happened then.
    Post-breach the Bihar administration stated that Kosi now wants to go to its old channels to the east…
    And you let it go? Why then, did you repair the embankment in time on earlier occasions and not let Kosi be free to go where it pleases?
    If indeed the river ‘wants’ to go eastwards, why did Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agree to inaugurate the Kamla siphon on the western Kosi canal on August 26, considering the embankment broke on August 18?
    Reports say Kosi has been ‘notorious’ for centuries bringing coarse sand and gravel from upper river systems.
    When policymakers started the embankment project without public debate (1955), did they not know Kosi brings unmanageable detritus? That the sediment carried by it would settle in the bed, raising its level yearly.
    Post-embankment, in 50 years Kosi has risen five inches annually in the lower reaches, climbing as high as the original embankments (18 feet).
    In 1952, Bihar had 160 km of embankments (on the Gandak, vintage 1757) and a flood prone area of 25 lakh hectare.
    Today, Bihar has 3,440 km of embankments and a flood prone area of 68.8 lakh hectare (1994 figures) — an increase of more than 2.5 times. It may have increased more. You call that efficient flood control?
    Terming sediment treacherous is the establishment’s sinister way of deflecting attention from the flawed embankment strategy.
    Before Kosi’s embankment how did villagers perceive floods and sediment?
    They have a saying: ‘Ael Balan to bandhalaun dalan, gail Balan ta tutlai dalan’. (The year floods come we have a good crop, add a verandah — dalan — to the house; in a year sans flood, we lose whatever we had.) Floods would deposit fertile silt, rejuvenate water tables, enable bumper crops.
    Tradition says women would pray to Kosi to come, requesting it to leave if it overstayed beyond two-three days. Finally, they would sprinkle vermilion into the virgin river as Kosi is known — unbraided one (muktveni) — threatening marriage to end her playful ways!
    Our engineers who handle rivers are never taught the river’s place in people’s lives.
    So every flood need not be a disaster?
    Exactly. An open river encroaching on its banks has less velocity.
    Villagers narrate the rain and flood sequence: the first big rain is to settle summer dust; the second for sowing paddy seedlings; the third to fill reservoirs, the fourth for paddy transplantation. A spill after that is noticed. The river doesn’t spill more than five-six times a season.
    What do villagers feel about floods now?
    Floods evoke fear. One villager said, “We had an equal relationship with the river. You built a wall between my river and me to control floods. Now she rises 15 feet. You have empowered the river to kill me.”
    India noticed the 2008 floods because water spilled out in a major surge, affecting areas hitherto protected by embankments and thus unprepared – including urban areas.
    But no one notices the floods and disasters embankments create annually.
    How?
    The embankments, about 15 feet wide at crest, present the highest level to escape water. Many people live between Kosi and its embankments permanently, some whose houses were swept away 14 times in the past 45 years.
    Families living between Kosi and its embankments?
    Yes — 9.88 lakh people in 380 villages, according to Census 2001. The average distance between embankments is 10 km. Kosi is free to spill 10 km. From these villages the river goes and spills outwards during a breach — eight times thus far. Rest 40-odd post-embankment years, these villages have faced annual deluges, without anyone noticing.
    This is the invisible, continuing tragedy of Kosi’s embankment.
    Yes. If the embankments stay, a million in India and 1.5 lakh people in Nepal living within them will face floods annually.
    Officials say they live in the wrong place forgetting their rehabilitation site houses are water-logged. Cranky collectors sometimes refuse relief saying it is not for people living inside.
    How have embankments and the consequent water-logging affected the region?
    Coarsened the soil, destroyed production processes. But people have not committed suicide, not until now. They gave life a chance by migrating.
    What is the solution?
    A proposed dam’s construction in Nepal, says the government. How? Nepal is a sovereign country. The proposal has been hanging fire for 71 years. There are considerations about earthquake hazards and strategic safety.
    It’s not a long term solution — Kosi’s sizeable catchment is downstream of the proposed dam.
    Where have experts missed out?
    Embankment technology is based on water levels; it does not take note of the role of sediment trapped within the walls — whose annual average load is enough for a 1m x 1m cross-section bund to circle the equator thrice.
    What is the answer to embankment?
    Tradition says a river’s dharma is to spread sediment, water and drain it subsequently. Deltas form that way.
    We have built embankments, railway lines and roads in a scenario of over population and urbanisation without ensuring adequate drainage.
    Improve drainage; check the silt load by spreading it, without interfering much with Kosi’s natural working. Some support control flooding: keeping embankments low so water and silt spread across land. Society was doing this without external aid before the embankments came. This issue needs an open debate.
    Ultimately, there is no alternative to a dialogue between the engineers’ skills and people’s wisdom based on their intimate relationship with the river.
    Otherwise, if it’s Kosi today, it’s Bagmati tomorrow and Mahananda the day after. Get ready to fly relief to Sitamarhi and Katihar.

    जवाब देंहटाएं
  5. Article written in response to an esteemed reader EK AUR KAAM

    Vijay Deo Jha
    The Pioneer
    In response to my first article on Kosi one of the esteemed reader EK AUR KAAM asked me for a solution.
    Well from the last 60 years the team of expert engineers and politicians are tiggering their cells to find solution. Well I am not an expert. But one need not to be an expert to find solution. I wrote, tried to expose the misdeeds of the politicians and 'The Great Theatricals on Flood' staged by the politicians trying to show their gaudy sentiments before the lakhs of helpless people. Still, still you are searching for solution. I am refering to an excerpt. Kindly go through it. Thank you for writing your comments

    Kosi carried a maximum of 9, 13,000 cusecs on October 5, 1968 when the western embankment broke at five places in Darbhanga. The embankments were designed to accommodate a flow of 9,50,000 cusecs.
    This year Kosi was carrying 1,44,000 cusecs when it breached the embankment. It was silted up. Inadequately maintained, the embankment breached at one-seventh its capacity. Is that nature’s fury?
    Blaming Nepal is a face saving device; the responsibility for maintaining embankments rests with Bihar’s Water Resources Department.
    Yes. In 1963 and 1968, rats and foxes were accused of making holes in the embankment. In 1971, the river was blamed. The culprits in 1980 and 1984: lack of roads to transport boulders to reinforce embankments. In 1991, the embankment had eroded but the water receded fast. Had Kosi been a foot higher, 2008 would have happened then.
    Post-breach the Bihar administration stated that Kosi now wants to go to its old channels to the east…
    And you let it go? Why then, did you repair the embankment in time on earlier occasions and not let Kosi be free to go where it pleases?
    If indeed the river ‘wants’ to go eastwards, why did Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agree to inaugurate the Kamla siphon on the western Kosi canal on August 26, considering the embankment broke on August 18?
    Reports say Kosi has been ‘notorious’ for centuries bringing coarse sand and gravel from upper river systems.
    When policymakers started the embankment project without public debate (1955), did they not know Kosi brings unmanageable detritus? That the sediment carried by it would settle in the bed, raising its level yearly.
    Post-embankment, in 50 years Kosi has risen five inches annually in the lower reaches, climbing as high as the original embankments (18 feet).
    In 1952, Bihar had 160 km of embankments (on the Gandak, vintage 1757) and a flood prone area of 25 lakh hectare.
    Today, Bihar has 3,440 km of embankments and a flood prone area of 68.8 lakh hectare (1994 figures) — an increase of more than 2.5 times. It may have increased more. You call that efficient flood control?
    Terming sediment treacherous is the establishment’s sinister way of deflecting attention from the flawed embankment strategy.
    Before Kosi’s embankment how did villagers perceive floods and sediment?
    They have a saying: ‘Ael Balan to bandhalaun dalan, gail Balan ta tutlai dalan’. (The year floods come we have a good crop, add a verandah — dalan — to the house; in a year sans flood, we lose whatever we had.) Floods would deposit fertile silt, rejuvenate water tables, enable bumper crops.
    Tradition says women would pray to Kosi to come, requesting it to leave if it overstayed beyond two-three days. Finally, they would sprinkle vermilion into the virgin river as Kosi is known — unbraided one (muktveni) — threatening marriage to end her playful ways!
    Our engineers who handle rivers are never taught the river’s place in people’s lives.
    So every flood need not be a disaster?
    Exactly. An open river encroaching on its banks has less velocity.
    Villagers narrate the rain and flood sequence: the first big rain is to settle summer dust; the second for sowing paddy seedlings; the third to fill reservoirs, the fourth for paddy transplantation. A spill after that is noticed. The river doesn’t spill more than five-six times a season.
    What do villagers feel about floods now?
    Floods evoke fear. One villager said, “We had an equal relationship with the river. You built a wall between my river and me to control floods. Now she rises 15 feet. You have empowered the river to kill me.”
    India noticed the 2008 floods because water spilled out in a major surge, affecting areas hitherto protected by embankments and thus unprepared – including urban areas.
    But no one notices the floods and disasters embankments create annually.
    How?
    The embankments, about 15 feet wide at crest, present the highest level to escape water. Many people live between Kosi and its embankments permanently, some whose houses were swept away 14 times in the past 45 years.
    Families living between Kosi and its embankments?
    Yes — 9.88 lakh people in 380 villages, according to Census 2001. The average distance between embankments is 10 km. Kosi is free to spill 10 km. From these villages the river goes and spills outwards during a breach — eight times thus far. Rest 40-odd post-embankment years, these villages have faced annual deluges, without anyone noticing.
    This is the invisible, continuing tragedy of Kosi’s embankment.
    Yes. If the embankments stay, a million in India and 1.5 lakh people in Nepal living within them will face floods annually.
    Officials say they live in the wrong place forgetting their rehabilitation site houses are water-logged. Cranky collectors sometimes refuse relief saying it is not for people living inside.
    How have embankments and the consequent water-logging affected the region?
    Coarsened the soil, destroyed production processes. But people have not committed suicide, not until now. They gave life a chance by migrating.
    What is the solution?
    A proposed dam’s construction in Nepal, says the government. How? Nepal is a sovereign country. The proposal has been hanging fire for 71 years. There are considerations about earthquake hazards and strategic safety.
    It’s not a long term solution — Kosi’s sizeable catchment is downstream of the proposed dam.
    Where have experts missed out?
    Embankment technology is based on water levels; it does not take note of the role of sediment trapped within the walls — whose annual average load is enough for a 1m x 1m cross-section bund to circle the equator thrice.
    What is the answer to embankment?
    Tradition says a river’s dharma is to spread sediment, water and drain it subsequently. Deltas form that way.
    We have built embankments, railway lines and roads in a scenario of over population and urbanisation without ensuring adequate drainage.
    Improve drainage; check the silt load by spreading it, without interfering much with Kosi’s natural working. Some support control flooding: keeping embankments low so water and silt spread across land. Society was doing this without external aid before the embankments came. This issue needs an open debate.
    Ultimately, there is no alternative to a dialogue between the engineers’ skills and people’s wisdom based on their intimate relationship with the river.
    Otherwise, if it’s Kosi today, it’s Bagmati tomorrow and Mahananda the day after. Get ready to fly relief to Sitamarhi and Katihar.

    जवाब देंहटाएं
  6. Article written in response to an esteemed reader EK AUR KAAM

    Vijay Deo Jha
    The Pioneer
    In response to my first article on Kosi one of the esteemed reader EK AUR KAAM asked me for a solution.
    Well from the last 60 years the team of expert engineers and politicians are tiggering their cells to find solution. Well I am not an expert. But one need not to be an expert to find solution. I wrote, tried to expose the misdeeds of the politicians and 'The Great Theatricals on Flood' staged by the politicians trying to show their gaudy sentiments before the lakhs of helpless people. Still, still you are searching for solution. I am refering to an excerpt. Kindly go through it. Thank you for writing your comments

    Kosi carried a maximum of 9, 13,000 cusecs on October 5, 1968 when the western embankment broke at five places in Darbhanga. The embankments were designed to accommodate a flow of 9,50,000 cusecs.
    This year Kosi was carrying 1,44,000 cusecs when it breached the embankment. It was silted up. Inadequately maintained, the embankment breached at one-seventh its capacity. Is that nature’s fury?
    Blaming Nepal is a face saving device; the responsibility for maintaining embankments rests with Bihar’s Water Resources Department.
    Yes. In 1963 and 1968, rats and foxes were accused of making holes in the embankment. In 1971, the river was blamed. The culprits in 1980 and 1984: lack of roads to transport boulders to reinforce embankments. In 1991, the embankment had eroded but the water receded fast. Had Kosi been a foot higher, 2008 would have happened then.
    Post-breach the Bihar administration stated that Kosi now wants to go to its old channels to the east…
    And you let it go? Why then, did you repair the embankment in time on earlier occasions and not let Kosi be free to go where it pleases?
    If indeed the river ‘wants’ to go eastwards, why did Chief Minister Nitish Kumar agree to inaugurate the Kamla siphon on the western Kosi canal on August 26, considering the embankment broke on August 18?
    Reports say Kosi has been ‘notorious’ for centuries bringing coarse sand and gravel from upper river systems.
    When policymakers started the embankment project without public debate (1955), did they not know Kosi brings unmanageable detritus? That the sediment carried by it would settle in the bed, raising its level yearly.
    Post-embankment, in 50 years Kosi has risen five inches annually in the lower reaches, climbing as high as the original embankments (18 feet).
    In 1952, Bihar had 160 km of embankments (on the Gandak, vintage 1757) and a flood prone area of 25 lakh hectare.
    Today, Bihar has 3,440 km of embankments and a flood prone area of 68.8 lakh hectare (1994 figures) — an increase of more than 2.5 times. It may have increased more. You call that efficient flood control?
    Terming sediment treacherous is the establishment’s sinister way of deflecting attention from the flawed embankment strategy.
    Before Kosi’s embankment how did villagers perceive floods and sediment?
    They have a saying: ‘Ael Balan to bandhalaun dalan, gail Balan ta tutlai dalan’. (The year floods come we have a good crop, add a verandah — dalan — to the house; in a year sans flood, we lose whatever we had.) Floods would deposit fertile silt, rejuvenate water tables, enable bumper crops.
    Tradition says women would pray to Kosi to come, requesting it to leave if it overstayed beyond two-three days. Finally, they would sprinkle vermilion into the virgin river as Kosi is known — unbraided one (muktveni) — threatening marriage to end her playful ways!
    Our engineers who handle rivers are never taught the river’s place in people’s lives.
    So every flood need not be a disaster?
    Exactly. An open river encroaching on its banks has less velocity.
    Villagers narrate the rain and flood sequence: the first big rain is to settle summer dust; the second for sowing paddy seedlings; the third to fill reservoirs, the fourth for paddy transplantation. A spill after that is noticed. The river doesn’t spill more than five-six times a season.
    What do villagers feel about floods now?
    Floods evoke fear. One villager said, “We had an equal relationship with the river. You built a wall between my river and me to control floods. Now she rises 15 feet. You have empowered the river to kill me.”
    India noticed the 2008 floods because water spilled out in a major surge, affecting areas hitherto protected by embankments and thus unprepared – including urban areas.
    But no one notices the floods and disasters embankments create annually.
    How?
    The embankments, about 15 feet wide at crest, present the highest level to escape water. Many people live between Kosi and its embankments permanently, some whose houses were swept away 14 times in the past 45 years.
    Families living between Kosi and its embankments?
    Yes — 9.88 lakh people in 380 villages, according to Census 2001. The average distance between embankments is 10 km. Kosi is free to spill 10 km. From these villages the river goes and spills outwards during a breach — eight times thus far. Rest 40-odd post-embankment years, these villages have faced annual deluges, without anyone noticing.
    This is the invisible, continuing tragedy of Kosi’s embankment.
    Yes. If the embankments stay, a million in India and 1.5 lakh people in Nepal living within them will face floods annually.
    Officials say they live in the wrong place forgetting their rehabilitation site houses are water-logged. Cranky collectors sometimes refuse relief saying it is not for people living inside.
    How have embankments and the consequent water-logging affected the region?
    Coarsened the soil, destroyed production processes. But people have not committed suicide, not until now. They gave life a chance by migrating.
    What is the solution?
    A proposed dam’s construction in Nepal, says the government. How? Nepal is a sovereign country. The proposal has been hanging fire for 71 years. There are considerations about earthquake hazards and strategic safety.
    It’s not a long term solution — Kosi’s sizeable catchment is downstream of the proposed dam.
    Where have experts missed out?
    Embankment technology is based on water levels; it does not take note of the role of sediment trapped within the walls — whose annual average load is enough for a 1m x 1m cross-section bund to circle the equator thrice.
    What is the answer to embankment?
    Tradition says a river’s dharma is to spread sediment, water and drain it subsequently. Deltas form that way.
    We have built embankments, railway lines and roads in a scenario of over population and urbanisation without ensuring adequate drainage.
    Improve drainage; check the silt load by spreading it, without interfering much with Kosi’s natural working. Some support control flooding: keeping embankments low so water and silt spread across land. Society was doing this without external aid before the embankments came. This issue needs an open debate.
    Ultimately, there is no alternative to a dialogue between the engineers’ skills and people’s wisdom based on their intimate relationship with the river.
    Otherwise, if it’s Kosi today, it’s Bagmati tomorrow and Mahananda the day after. Get ready to fly relief to Sitamarhi and Katihar.

    जवाब देंहटाएं

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