CPI-ML terms Bihar flood 'man made',seeks Presidential intervention

Patna, Sep 1 (UNI) Terming the devastating flood in north Bihar as 'man made', CPI-ML has sought immediate intervention of President Pratibha Devisingh Patil in preparing 'a comprehensive programme for flood control and river management in the country'.

In a letter to the President, the copies of which were made available to the media, the party claimed that ''decades of negligence and callousness on the part of the successive state and Central governments had led to the present catastrophic situation destroying lives and property of millions of people'' in several north Bihar districts.

Quoting the latest data from the 'National Commission on Floods', the party as said the country's 16.5 per cent flood affected areas were located in Bihar, whose 56.5 per cent population faced the natural calamity every year. Of them 76 per cent were the residents of north Bihar districts alone.

Describing the annual menace of floods as a ''longstanding problem of Bihar in absence of any concrete and effective measure'', the party said the nature was also very unkind to the state as barring one or two, all the nine major rivers passing through the region originated in Nepal and send huge waves of water to the downstream every year during monsoon. These rivers are the Ghagra, Gandak, Buri-Gandak, Bagmati and the Adwara.

The party also urgerd the President to ensure proper and speedy distribution of relief materials and food packets among the millions of hapless flood victims through proper channels besides asking the concerned authorities to take up immediate plugging of the breached embankments with best quality materials and following latest technology.

However, unless a comprehensive programme was taken up jointly by the state and central governments on top priority basis for control of flood fury through useful river management, thousands of lives and standing crops in millions of acres of land would be lost and damaged every year, the party said and reiterated its appeal to the President for her personal intervention for a permanent solution for the disaster.

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