73% land areas face fury of floods every year in Bihar

Patna, May 22 (UNI) Faced with the annual fury of nature, over 73 per cent land areas in Bihar are flooded every year causing immense loss to life and property besides damaging human habitation.

Expressing concern at the alleged lackadaisical attitude of the concerned agencies as well as the Centre in finding a fool proof solution to the annual menace, official sources here today said more than 68.8 million hectares of cultivable land, which is 73.06 per cent of the state's total land area of 94.16 million hectares, are flooded every monsoon months causing suffeering to millions of people.

The flood situation in North Bihar usually worse than the South Bihar because of its proximity to Nepal from where huge flows of water roll down the hills causing floods in all the major rivers including the Gandak, Koshi, Bagmati, Kamalabalan and the Mahananda and other every year.

Since all these rivers originate in upper regions of Nepal, huge amount of water flows down to lower plains in Bihar in rainy season and causes floods and misery to the people of the state living both sides of these rivers, the sources said. They criticised the Union Government for not providing timely assistance to the state to tackle the situation.

In absence of any long-term policy to control the floods, millions of people in Bihar suffer every year, the sources said and called for suitable steps like proper embankments and regular cleaning of slurs from the river bed to make the rivers deeper to prevent the annual catastrophy.

Huge property of several hundred crore of rupees and average 100 people along the banks of river die due to flood in Bihar every year, they said.

UNI