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dam-l The Hindu: Living on the edge
The Hindu Sunday, May 31, 1998
Living on the edge
Date: 31-05-1998 :: Pg: 26 :: Col: a
The humid alluvial plains of Bihar have a congenial
agroclimate,
fertile tracts of land and ample water to promote high
agricultural
potential. But, man made intervention in flood control has
aggravated the situation. The Kosi project, which
involved the
construction of embankments on the eastern and western
side, is a
case in point, MEENA MENON on the need for scientific
solutions to problems of flood-prone areas.
A FARMER looks over the jagged edge of the Gandak river and
laments that a portion of his land, sugarcane and all,
has just
fallen off into the river. Villages clustered in this
diara , a fertile
patch of land between two mighty rivers - the Ganga and the
Ganda - are literally living on the edge. According to
the Centre
for Science and Environment, the Himalayan rivers bring
enormous quantities of silt and cover vast expanses of
land as their beds. When the flood
waters recede, large tracts of land are available for
cultivation these active river beds, called
diaras, are inhabited by millions. They are subjected
to the vagaries of changing river courses
and floods and erosion.
The Kosi has moved 120 km westward in the past 250
years through 12 district channels. The
Gandak has once again changed its course, villagers
said and erosion was taking out huge
chunks of cultivated land. In Sabbalpur hasti tola,
which is under Sonpur division of Chapra in
Saran district of Bihar, villagers face the prospect of
their land being eaten away by an
insidious river which, four months ago, had posed no
threat to them. The fields along the edge
of the river full of corn and vegetables are slowly
being consumed by the water. ``We may
have lost 20,000 bighas in the last four months,'' said
Bhushan Rai.
Dhaneshwar Rai said,``My house was on the bank and I
have had to shift it. On another house
collapsed as it was too near the bank. Sixteen or 17
families had to shift as well. The river has
changed its course. In the monsoon it is so bad, we
survive on boats.''
Looking down at the river from the edge of the bank,
Bhushan Rai said, ``If you happen to fall
in, that is the end. The mud will suffocate and kill
you at once.'' Cheered on by this thought,
we walked a little away from the edge. It was just as
well as on our return, there was a muffled
thud behind us and we saw one more chunk of the bank
crumbling into the water. Bachcha Rai
whose fields border the bank, said he had lost six of
the 12 bighas he owned. ``To whom will
I go for compensation,'' he asked.
The topography of this region of Bihar may seem strange
to the outsider but for the villagers it
is part of their daily lives. The landscape is dotted
with chaurs or low lying depressions filled
with water, mauns or oxbow lakes, broken embankments,
islands, river channels, and diaras
where people eke out a living by agriculture or fishing.
At Ami village, 30 km from Chapra, villagers are
returning from their fields on a diara. In the
setting sun, the herds of buffalo kick up a fine red
dust which shimmers as the sunlight filters
through it. In the monsoon the whole area is flooded,
submerging the diara. All along the way
we heard one complaint - the river changing its course
every year. In Vaishali district in the
Shambhapur Kuari village, near the Imadpur chaur, 400
hectares for the kharif crop was
submerged, according to the Centre for Water Resources
Studies, Patna University. The
fringes of the area became available only for rabi
cultivation.
According to another local, Bindeshwar Rai from
Jalalpur village, the chaur was useless as
long it was full of water. This only drained May end
and then the villagers planted crops on it.
He remembers the last major flood ten years ago when
water rose above three feet for over a
week and they sought shelter in a school.
The Centre for Water Resources Studies, Patna
University, conducted a study in 1990 on
wasteland problems in humid alluvial regions with North
Bihar as a case study. The natural
wetlands comprising chaurs and oxbow lakes scattered
over the plains of North Bihar cover
about 2 lakh hectares alone in chaurs and 3,645
hectares- oxbow lakes.
The total flood affected area in North Bihar is around
30.6 lakh hectares which is 57.32 per
cent of the basin area. In addition is the problem
caused by 3200 km of embankments built for
flood protection. Flood embankments tend to diminish
the productivity and degraded lands
both within and without the embankments and evidence of
this can be seen in the region.
Sometimes the spacing between the embankments is over
10 kms and the area in between,
generally fertile land, is flooded, causing severe damage.
A typical case in point is the Musahari oxbow lake
which was created due to the shifting in
course of the Burhi Gandak river. The situation was
aggravated by the embankments which
blocked the drainage. Prior to the embankments, farmers
used to get three crops in the area.
The humid alluvial plains of Bihar have a congenial
agroclimate, fertile tracts of land and ample
water to promote high agricultural potential. But, man
made intervention in flood control has
aggravated the situation. In some cases people
confirmed that there was no water logging
problem in chaurs till 1965, when embankments were
constructed all over the place.
According to Narayan Jee Choudhary, an activist working
in the flood affected areas, the Kosi
project was a politician- technocrat conspiracy. In
1955 when the Kosi barrage was proposed,
there was a lot of opposition. Those in power justified
the dam and people were told the place
would turn into a heaven. However, today this heaven is
waterlogged, rendered saline and
earlier where the water took a week to drain off, it
now lasted two months. People in flood-
affected areas were breaking embankments to effect
drainage. Mr. Choudhary said 1.5 crore
people living in 11 districts of Bihar were affected.
At least 1.5 lakh people were displaced by
the project and now it had became a ``heaven'' from
where people migrated in large numbers.
The Kosi area is a confluence zone of more than a dozen
rivers all of which originate in the
upper Himalayas. Agriculture and cattle were the
backbone of the local economy but both were
in a state of neglect as the embankments had devastated
the region.
The Kosi area development project was launched in 1955
and involved the construction of 144
km of embankment on the eastern and 123.2 km of western
bank of the Kosi. This region,
once called the granary of Bihar, has now witnessed
migration in droves for employment. The
riverbed has been rising by 12 to 15 feet, posing a
threat to local inhabitants, Mr Choudhary
said.
Recently, Nidan, a common forum of 20 NGOs, was formed,
it included grassroots
organisations, activists and mass organisations in the
Kosi region. All of them are working on
the issues of land and problems caused by the Kosi
river - annual floods, embankments,
waterlogging, displacement, among other issues.
Dr. T. Prasad, director of the Centre for Water
Resources Studies, Patna University, said
floods were a normal hydrological process. ``The
problem is that a large number of people
inhabited these flood- prone areas and there was an
increase in pressure on the land to which
the rising population had contributed. The development
of scientific solutions to the problems
of flood prone areas was missing.''
``North Bihar has been relying on embankments for flood
control, this has impeded the
drainage function of rivers and the devastation in the
downstream has been colossal. The
productivity of North Bihar in spite of two major river
systems- the Kosi and the Gandak - has
not increased. On the contrary, the rice and sugar
mills which flourished earlier have been
closed. We have practised imperfections like quackery
not understanding the problem and
dealing with it scientifically.'' He advocated the
construction of high dams for flood control
and hydroelectricity.
Water management experts and engineers across the
border talk of decentralising control over
resources and involving people in a participatory
decision-making process. Way back in 1992,
the Patna Initiative was launched after a conference in
Patna on water resources. Indian and
Nepali officials met to talk in a rational manner as
co- basin countries. ``We formed a
collaborative group with the Royal Nepal Academy of
Science and Technology to take follow
up steps which included exchange of visits,'' he explained.
However, the problem with Bihar is that it had to fight
on two fronts - Nepal and Delhi. The
alienation of people was so complete that in the areas
bordering Nepal, called Valmiki nagar,
people did not even know whether they were in India or
Nepal.
The theory that deforestation is the reason for floods
has often been contested. While
politicians and engineers say the answer to floods is
building high dams on the mountain
gorges, water management experts in Nepal are not so
sure this is the answer. This is
assuming crucial importance in the light of high dam
projects that are proposed in the mountain
kingdom in a bid to augment hydroelectric power as well
as flood control.
Dipak Gyawali, engineer and economist of
Interdisciplinary Analysts and member of the
Pragya Sabha, Royal Nepal Academy of Science and
Technology, Kathmandu, said there was
a feeling among people that high dams could stop floods
in the lower riparian regions. The
problem with realising the huge hydroelectric potential
that Nepal is said to have, involves the
construction of high dams in areas which are highly
seismic and prone to high intensity
cloudbursts.
In July, 1993, in a 15 hour period, a portion of Nepal
South of Kathmandu, where the 114m
high Kulekhani rockfill dam is located received 540 mm
of rain. This dam which was
completed in 1981, was funded by the World Bank, Japan
and other donors. It was built
according to a 1974 Japanese study which said the
sedimentation rate was 400-700 cubic
metres per annum per sq km. On that one day in July,
1993, it received 40,000 cum/sq/km of
sediment. An 8000 tonne rock set loose by the
cloudburst smashed the penstock of the
Kulekhani power plant , disrupting power in the entire
Nepali grid since the Kulekhani system
generated 40 per cent of the country's total power.
Sedimentation reduces the life of dams and
the high seismicity increases the cost of the
structures - these are two main problems in South
Asia's Northern rim from Afghanistan and Pakistan
through India and Nepal to the Meghalaya
and Khasi hills in Bangladesh. The resulting high costs
make dams economically unviable.
There is the added problem of poor knowledge of
hydrology that makes large investments in
heavy structures prone to risks and surprises in the
high Himalaya. The phenomenon of glacial
lake outburst flood or glofs can destroy major
investments, and in the middle Himalaya, the
phenomenon of landlslide dammed lakes (known in Nepali
as BishyariI) could have similarly
devastating consequences.
``How can a country which could not rehabilitate seven
families displaced by the relatively
small Marsyangdi hydroelectric project near Pokhara and
42 families affected by the Tanakpur
barrage built by India on the border of the river
Mahakali (called Sarda in India) compensate
tens of thousands of oustees in the mega projects,''
Mr. Gyawali asked.
The debate is not over big and small dams but in the
capacity to bear and manage risk. It is also
about decentralisation and local empowerment, he said.
In the World Bank review of 50 large
dams in the world funded by the Bank, five were
classified as unacceptable even by the Bank's
standards. Kulekhani was one of them. The Mahakali dam
which is now proposed is 150 km
east of Tehri and located in the biggest seismic gap in
the Himalaya - which means a big
earthquake was due anytime. The 1000 ft high dam is
estimated to cost 3 billion USD.
``Obviously we have not learnt the lesson from Arun-3
which was totally based on external
expertise and cost 1.2 b USD,'' Mr. Dixit said. The
basic lesson of Arun-3 was that large-scale
expensive projects are not the best in the world. Small
projects are less risky and the finances
are within the social capacity of the people. After
Arun was shelved, six new projects are now
being built with capacities ranging from six MW to 144
MW these alternative projects will
generate a third more power at two - thirds the cost in
half the time, compared to the 201 MW
Arun 3 which would have cost 1.1 billion USD and taken
ten years to construct.