Brief Outline

Floods and devastation has been a regular feature of the Kosi region in Bihar ever since embankments on the Kosi River were constructed five decades ago to tame its strong and turbulent currents, and ostensibly to provide flood protection to an estimated area of 2.1 lakh hectares between where the river enters Bihar from Nepal and where it joins the Ganga. According to the available information, there are around 380 villages with a population of 9.88 lakh trapped between the two embankments of the Kosi. They are spread over four districts (Supaul, Saharsa, Darbhanga and Madhubani) and 13 blocks (Basantpur, Kishanpur, Saraigarh-Bhaptiahi, Nirmali, Supaul, Navhatta, Mahishi, Simri Bakhtiyarpur, Salkhua, Kiratpur, Laukahi, Marauna, and Madhepur). The embankments have created a situation whereby these villages are flooded for four months annually. Silt deposits over the years have also raised the level of the river bed (land between the embankments), so that it is now 15 feet higher than the surrounding area. Although people have been witnessing adverse consequences ever since the embankments were built, the worst possible disaster struck when a breach in the embankments at Kusaha in Nepal in 2008 shifted the course of the river 120 kms eastward to its old course it had abandoned about 200 years ago. The deluge inundated vast areas in the districts of Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura, Purnea, Araria and Katihar. Nearly 3 million people were from their homes; more than 300,000 houses were destroyed; and at least 340,000 hectares of crops were damaged.

Regular floods and soil erosion has left scores of people in the Kosi region permanently displaced from their settlements. The initiatives taken by the government have been very lackluster, lacking vision and planning, and have not benefited the people in any significant manner. In the beginning of the Kosi Project, the affected people inside the embankment area had been promised land outside the embankment. Many people were even given parcha/parwana for the same. But most of these people have not been able to settle on those lands due to various reasons. The resettlement sites allotted by the government were located around 8-10 km away from their original villages. It was, therefore, not practically feasible for the villagers to settle on these lands and carry out farming on land in their original villages. Another reason was that the resettlement sites which were adjacent to the embankments became perennially waterlogged and unfit for settlement. Most people who were given rehabilitation land outside the embankments are, therefore, back in their old villages within the embankments. On the other hand, thousands of those people who did not have any land in the original villages also can be found living on the river embankments or by the side of the roads for as long as 30 to 40 years.

The original villages are exposed to the onslaughts of regular floods and erosion. Many villages have been eroded as many as 14-15 times in the past five decades. Each time the villagers have to rebuild their houses. They shift on to embankments during the floods and go back after the floods subside. They are closer to their fields but farther from any civic amenity, trapped as they are within the two embankments. The block, sub-division and district collector’s offices, are all located outside the embankments. Similarly, it also becomes extremely difficult for these people to access and avail education and health services, legal aid, banking and postal facilities, and employment opportunities. At times, they are even denied urgently needed relief by the whimsical district administration on the plea that they are living in places they are not supposed to occupy. The administration claims that it can provide relief only if they stay in their rehabilitation sites.