The cursed land of Kosi, two years after the deluge

19/08/2010

Patna,(BiharTimes): August 18, 2010 marks the completion of two years of the breach in the Kusaha embankment on river Kosi, which led to the killing of thousands of people. Besides, it displaced 33 lakh people and destroyed thousands of houses and swept away about a million cattle.
The devastation was unprecedented even by the Kosi standard, yet two years down the memory lane the people of half a dozen devastated districts hardly got any succour from the government.
Apart from the early relief and rescue operation by the army, navy and air force and––no doubt railways too––no long term rehabilitation work has been taken up. The state government on its part passes the buck on to the Centre, which granted immediate grant of Rs 1,010 crore, besides, other help.
Nothing exemplify the sorry plight of the people more than the decision of chief minister Nitish Kumar to return Rs five crore aid money of Gujarat government on June 12, 2010 simply because his photo got published with Narendra Modi in an advertisement given by the BJP. When a government could not spend Rs five crore even 22 months after the tragedy, how could it spend Rs 1,010 crore can only be imagined.
After the tragedy the state government constituted Justice Rajesh Balia Commission to inquire the breach in the embankment. Justice Balia is the Retired Chief Justice of Patna High Court.
Two years later nothing much is heard about the Commission. Lakhs of people are yet to settle back and sand has spilled over and spread over thousands of acres of once fertile land.
Two years latter no responsibility has been fixed, no one punished, nor is the government doing anything in this regard, except indulging in the blame-game.

Barring some statements by the opposition politicians and citizens’ march from near All India Radio station and posters’ exhibition by social activists and anti-embankment groups nothing worthwhile happened. The entire society seems to have forgotten one of the biggest man-made tragedies of the last one century.

True some local newspapers and TV channels did highlight the sorry state of affairs in the region devastated by Kosi, yet it is the Press, in particular and public opinion-makers in general, which are also to be blamed for exonerating the government and bureaucracy for such a horrendous crime.

It needs to be reminded that it took one full week, after the breach of embankment on August 18, 2008, for the media to make this devastation a national news. Outside Bihar hardly anyone was knowing of the scale of destruction and killing. The media then simply toed the state government’s line. Yet there is no dearth of gentlemen, who would argue that the Centre and other non-government agencies did not rise to the occasion to help Bihar.

Seven hundred and thirty days later the victims and their family members ask who committed the crime?