Till Tuesday, at least 19 deaths have been confirmed, more than 1.5 lakh people were evacuated to a higher ground in Bihar
With the flood situation in Bihar still grim, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday to seek Centre's assistance and to draw its attention towards siltation, which Nitish said is worsening floods each year. The meeting went on for 45 minutes and PM Modi assured that there will serious consideration for a National Siltation Policy, Nitish told reporters after the meeting.
"I have requested the Prime Minister to send a team of experts who are impartial for monitoring the situation and also study the siltation problem. The Ganga in Bihar has become shallow and its water retention capacity is at at an all time low due to the heavy siltation. I have apprised the PM about this and I done so even during the UPA's time," Kumar told reporters here after the meeting.
He added that Bihar was suffering because of rainfall and discharge of water and that if siltation was not controlled, it would also affect the Namami Gange project. "Ganga's uninterrupted flow will be affected due to siltation which in turn will affect the ambitious Namami Gange scheme," said Kumar.
On August 20, an unprecedented 11.67 lakh cusecs (cubic foot per second) of water was released into Sone River from the Indrapuri Barrage in Rohtas district after Madhya Pradesh released enormous amount of water from Bansagar Dam. The sudden discharge in Sone river affected Ganga, triggering the worst flood it has seen since 1975. Till Tuesday, at least 19 deaths have been confirmed, more than 1.5 lakh people were evacuated to a higher ground and more than two lakh people have been displaced. Eleven people have died in Bhojpur, six have died in Vaishali and two have have died in Bhagalpur, officials said.
According to Bihar State Disaster Management Authority officials, ever as the situation in Patna is improving, the districts located downstream of Ganga are still facing hardships. On Tuesday, five more teams of National Disaster Response Force were deployed in addition to the five that are already engaged in rescue work. "Bhagalpur, Munger, Khagaria and Samastipur are facing a lot of problems as of now. Our priority is to evacuate people to higher ground. With heavy rainfall expected in Madhya Pradesh, we are expecting that more water may be released from Bansagar in the coming days," said Vyasji, principal secretary, principal secretary, disaster management department, Bihar.
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