It was gracious of the PM to declare Kosi floods a “national calamity” after an aerial survey of the vast area reeling under the fury of Kosi.  Since it suddenly changed its course after breaching its embankment in Nepal on August 18, Kosi has moved 120 km eastward, inundating huge tracks of low land in hundreds of villages across a large number of districts in east Bihar.  The Central government has also pledged an immediate assistance of Rs 1,000 crore as well as1.25 lakh tonnes of foodgrain to the Bihar government in order to tackle the calamity in right earnest. 

Going back a few decades in the history, can one imagine that the Central government in 1956 had conceived of a plan to construct a dam on the Kosi at Barahkshetra in Nepal at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore?  Apart from controlling the flood, the dam was expected to irrigate 1.25 million hectares of land and produce 3,300 MW of electricity.  The project was eventually shelved, apparently due to cost factor. 

Bihar has the distinction of being the most flood-affected state of the country, accounting for about 17 per cent of the flood-prone area of the country. Even if we discount the loss of infrastructure and crops costing thousands of crores of rupees, the tragedy affecting the lives of people and cattle can not and should not be discounted. It is not only the loss of lives, but the uprooting, the separation from near and dear ones, the trauma and uncertainties faced by children and the washing away of the lifelong earnings of poor families, which constitute the tragedy.  If there is an agreement on this aspect of tragedy, we should analyse whether, if a solution is available, the government should have tried that, whatever the cost?  Especially if people know that the disaster affecting them could have been averted if timely measures were taken.   

... contd.