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Flooded out

Flooded out The cash-strapped Bihar government has plugged funds meant for the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) for flood control measures. The state's rural development department has asked the district magistrates of 6 flood-prone districts to utilise funds meant for employment schemes to repair embankments. However, even though the Bihar government had planned to spend Rs 72 crores for flood control measures in the current financial year, the state, which is reeling under a financial crisis, could release only Rs 11 crore to maintain the embankments.

The state government's move has nevertheless been flayed by N J Kurien, adviser to the Union finance ministry and one of the architects of JRY during his stint in the ministry for rural development. "Bihar has spent much more money in short-term measures such as flood control than in long-term ones, like effective water management. Besides, while the state may justify the diversion of JRY funds on the ground that this too has created employment, such measures are not sustainable either for the land or for the people," he says.

Every year, Bihar is ravaged by floods from the Ganga, Bagmati, Gandak and Adhwara. Of the state's total area of 173.88 lakh ha, a whopping 64.61 lakh are flood prone. The flood of 1987, the century's worst, damaged infrastructure worth Rs 1,200 crore. According to P R Mishra, founder of the Chakriya Vikas Pranali, an NGO based in Daltonganj, if funds for employment creation programmes like JRY were utilised for watershed management and afforestation and to create durable assets, Bihar could have been better prepared to meet this annual calamity of floods.

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