Kosi shows signs of flooding, Bihar worried

The Kosi is in spate again. The water discharge has risen suddenly from 20,000 cusecs to 95,000 cusecs per day because of the pre-monsoon rains, bringing back memories of last year's floods. And to make matters worse, Maoists in Nepal are now hampering last-minute repair work at the Kusaha barrage.

State Minister for Water Resources, Bijendra Yadav says, "The point is that India does not have a good relationship with any of its neighbours including Nepal."

The breach that caused last years floods has now been plugged, but officials say there are more such vulnerable points in the barrage, which might give way once the water discharge reaches last year's levels.

Nepal official, Amar Karki says, "This is very dangerous and so the spur needs to be extended or repaired as soon as possible. And the embankment needs to be repaired urgently."

Since October last year, large scale repair and restoration work has been going on, but as the monsoon approaches, anxiety levels are rising.

A villager, Babu Ram says, "The river has started flooding again and we can see signs of danger."

Meanwhile, Bijendra Yadav says,"The elections came and our, engineers, executive engineers and even the superintending engineer were used as election officials. Because of this, we are two weeks behind schedule."

Once bitten twice shy - that's the story of people in Bihar, especially those residing in the Kosi region. The monsoon thunders have their hearts pounding and assurances from the government fail to bring relief to their mental anxiety.link

Centre sitting over funds for Bihar flood relief work: Nitish Kumar

Referring to release of funds for flood relief and rehabilitation work in Bihar, state Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday accused the Centre of being partisan towards the state, as it did not provide adequate aid to overcome the devastation caused by Kosi floods.

"The Centre has done great injustice to Bihar. We could not get the relief fund as per norms despite the Prime Minister himself declaring Kosi tragedy a national calamity," Nitish Kumar told reporters here after his visit to the Planning Commission to finalise state's annual plan size.

The extent of injustice can be understood from the fact that the state could not get any help from the Central Relief Fund (CRF) too, which is meant for the entire country, he said adding, "CRF is our right and not a favour". "We had a negative balance of Rs 800 crore in CRF," he added.

Kumar maintained that relief should have been granted by now as rehabilitation and reconstruction package were needed. "There are hardly five or six days left for the elections to be announced and the model code of conduct will be applicable," he said.

The matter was pending with the Government of India's high-level committee and there was no concrete proposal with the Planning Commission at the moment. He, however, stressed the state would seek its support and raise the issue during the full budget after the elections.link