North Bihar Plains

Bihar is no stranger to floods. The high-volume, high-velocity floods caused by large infrastructure projects regularly disrupt lives and decimate entire villages. This is the oft-repeated narrative, one of a helpless population as victims.

The twin sisters:  Bihar is a land of fertile farms bearing sugarcane, wheat, rice, gram and pulses. Interspersed between the fields are venerable mango groves. Of Bihar's children, perhaps none is as universally loved as Sita. The village that she was born in -Sitamarhi- welcomed another daughter along with Sita.

It's been years since Bhutahi Balan, a small tributary of the Kosi river in Madhubani, North Bihar, has been causing devastation on both its banks. Dinesh Mishra in his book 'Story of a ghost river and engineering witchcraft' objectively analyses the failure of embankments, which are raised banks to contain the river's flooding.

When Panchamlal Mahto was a toddler, he would frequently squat and poop as the urge took him irrespective of where he was. His mother would take a handful of ash and sprinkle it over the 'gift'. The ash would absorb the liquid, enabling the whole mess to be easily swept away. Back then, Vinita was still not born.

This presentation  highlights the grave water situation in Bihar in the context of the emerging water quality and quantity issues that the world and especially developing countries will be facing in the near future.

Article and Image courtesy: BodhiCommons

This season in the region is commonly referred to as – Barh (flood). For centuries local people have treated it as ‘a way of life’, and found ways to deal with it. Post independence, this ‘way of life’ gradually transformed into an assured annual devastation. The once self-sufficient communities in the flood plains have been relegated to being highly dependent on sources external to the village for their survival during floods.

India is the largest user of groundwater resources in the world. It is estimated that approximately 230 cubic kilometers per year is used annually, this is more than a quarter of the total world consumption from this resource.

It is in this context that this World Bank report looks at the reasons for this quantum of groundwater usage.

The report delves into socio-economic and political reasons and looks at policies which inadvertently promote so much extraction. The report also analyses various attempts to manage this resource. These attempts range from government and international agency efforts directed to grassroots mobilisations. Finally the report comes out with suggestions to deal with this crisis.

The paper by Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF) attempts to assess and improve water productivity in conservation agriculture systems in the Indus-Gangetic basin, in which during the past 40 years an intricate mosaic of interactions between man & nature, poverty & prosperity and problems & possibilities has emerged. Rapid expansion in agricultural water use is a common theme across these interactions and access to water is central to the livelihoods of the rural poor.

The paper by the Challenge Programme on Water and Food (CPWF) - Basin Focal Project provides a brief situation analysis related to water, agriculture & poverty, water resources, water productivity, institutional aspects and opportunities & risks related to the development of the Indo-Gangetic basin (IGB). Management of IGB water resources presents some formidable challenges and, therefore, steps must be taken towards integrated management of the IGB’s water and land resources in order to ensure the future sustainability of all production and ecosystems in the basin.