Good rainfall, bad management expose rift in Bihar ruling alliance

When people across Bihar, especially farmers, had been welcoming the delayed monsoon, citizens of Patna — as well as several BJP and JD(U) leaders — are blaming the Nitish Kumar government for the collapse of civic machinery leading to unprecedented chaos in the city.

As the Patna district administration was on Monday still busy in draining out water and rescuing people for the third day in a row, the general secretary of ruling Janata Dal (United) KC Tyagi was heard blasting the critics within the NDA for blaming the state government. “Why are people holding responsible the Nitish government for the natural calamity in the state?

Are they blaming the Yogi government of UP, Fadnavis government of Maharashtra or Mamata government in Bengal for the floods in the respective states?” he hit out at BJP leaders who were critical of the way the situation was being handled in Patna.

Though RJD spokesman Manoj Jha came down heavily on the Nitish government for ‘doing nothing’ for the suffering of people all over Bihar, Tyagi’s attack was directed more towards the friends in the alliance.

It was even before the recent rain that Union minister Giriraj Singh minced no words to strongly criticize chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi for ignoring his constituency Begusarai which was facing both flood and drought like situation.

He was not alone. On September 29, Janata Dal United MLA Narendra Singh alias Bogo Singh representing Mathiani (also in Begusarai) directly held his own government responsible for the ‘loot and corruption’ in the name of relief work for the flood victims in his constituency.

Both Tyagi and the chief minister had appealed to the people to maintain patience, saying the state government was doing everything to overcome the crisis, but people of the state capital are losing cool and are questioning the state government’s efforts as lakhs of people are yet to get electricity and water even 80 hours later.

Property worth hundreds of millions has been destroyed as rainwater entered their houses, apartments and shops especially in low-lying localities and colonies in the southern and western part of Patna.

“It is not floods, just water-logging because of poor drainage maintenance by the state government. The government should stop blaming the rain God as this delayed monsoon is very good for the Kharif crop,” said Manish Saandilya, whose first-floor rented house in Kankarbagh is still surrounded by three feet high water.

Manish, who originally hails from Supaul district on the border with Nepal, said that the rain across the state had brought new life to the crops as Bihar was facing a drought-like situation.

Farooq Azam, a social activist from Vaishali district, holds a similar opinion. Farmers from Gaya, Nawada, Khagaria and even Patna districts interviewed by this correspondent too welcomed the rain.

There is no denying the fact that the state government was caught napping when it started raining in the wee hours of September 28. A large part of Patna was submerged in water by the morning after 60 mm of rainfall. Neighbouring Gaya witnessed 53 mm of rain. The mention of Gaya is important because it was the last day of the annual Pitripaksha Mela on that day.

The state government had to face a lot of embarrassment when the deputy director of Met Department Anand Shankar denied the chief minister’s claim that the department had not informed the state government about heavy rain. Shankar, with the help of document, said on September 30 that his department had on September 19 alerted the state government about heavy rain between September 26 and 30.

Patna recorded 140 mm of rain on Sept. 28-29 which was no doubt high, but not unprecedented. But the drainage and sewerage system of Patna is not capable of handling even normal rainfall, not to speak of unusual.

More than the heavy downpour, it was its timing which is responsible for the present miseries. For example, on June 7-8, 2006 it rained heavily for two consecutive days causing a momentary problem. This was simply because it was the first monsoon rain and the rivers in the vicinity of Patna — Ganga, Sone, Punpun and Gandak — absorbed the water.

Heavy rain at the end of monsoon leaves no scope for the water to drain out as all the rivers are often swollen. Heavy rain in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh lead to the flooding of Ganga and Sone. Sometimes it also forces the authorities to release water from dams.

This had happened in 2016 when a large part of western Patna was inundated even when there was hardly any rainfall in Bihar’s capital. This was simply because of the sudden release of water from Bansagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh.

Later in February 2017, Nitish had decided to demolish the Farakka Barrage, which according to him is the main cause of floods in Bihar.

While he was calling for the demolition of big dams, some leaders of the alliance partner are the biggest champions of such huge structures.

What is ironical this time is that instead of making preparation for any possibility of floods, the Patna Municipal Corporation was busy in an anti-encroachment drive. The same drive was carried out in monsoon last year too; luckily it did not rain heavily in 2018.

While the anti-encroachment drive rendered thousands of slum-dwellers homeless – and hardly any government machinery is bothered about them in this hour of crisis – the drive led to a lot of choking of drains. As if that was not enough, the entire city was dug up for laying underground pipes. The potholes have now become death-traps leading to casualties.

The gravity of the situation in Patna can be measured by one video: that of deputy CM Sushil Modi (clad in shorts) and his family members being rescued on a boat by a team of NDRF on Sept. 30, that is on the third day after the rain started. While netizens ridiculed it as a drama asking as to what was he doing in his own home in Rajendra Nagar – when he should be at his official residence – others were more critical of him.

For example, Vivek Kesri, in one of the comments, wrote that those who ‘uproot others’ homes’ are bound to face nature’s fury. He was obviously referring to the anti-encroachment drive in Patna.

Others like Shams Khan posted as to where was the need for building Bihar Museum and the Convention Centre near Gandhi Maidan — each costing Rs 500 crore — when the city already had Patna Museum and Shri Krishna Memorial Hall in the vicinity of these two structures. “Why not Rs 1,000 crore spent on developing drainage system in the city?”

True, a lot of roads and flyovers have been built in Patna in the last couple of decades. But they have been made in total violation of all norms and rules. For example, most of the roads built after the coming to power of Nitish in November 2005 have been raised by about 15-20 inches causing serious problem of water logging. As the level of houses and shops has gone down, water has entered even those structures which were spared by the flood of 1975.

As if that was not enough, hundreds of apartments and commercial complexes have come up in the last few years in the city. They have thrown all norms and rules of Patna Municipal Corporation to the wind. Many of these structures have underground shops or car spaces. As waterlogging in Patna is a perennial problem – whether it rains or not –there is absolutely no scope of such basements in the city.

This thoughtless planning has led to the multiplication of miseries and destruction of property.

But the sad fact is that nobody is going to learn from this tragedy. They would only blame the nature as that is the best short-term solution.