Under pressure from the long struggle to stop the destructive Bagmati embankment construction, four-five years ago the Nitish government had constituted a review committee comprising river experts, but the government has still not bothered to make resources available to the committee or to empower it in any way and has once again allotted funds in crores for carrying forward the embankment construction work.
In protest against this the Bagmati Sangharsh Morcha organized a people's meeting at Benibad-Gayaghat in Muzaffarpur on 8 May 2022. The meeting was addressed by leaders and activists including CPIML MLA Sudama Prasad and was attended by a large number of farmers, workers and common people from the Bagmati region. The participation of a large number of women was a notable feature of the meeting which was conducted by Sangharsh Morcha convener and farmer leader Jitendra Yadav.
The people in this region of Bihar have been demanding for a long time a complete review and renewal of the Bagmati dam and embankments construction project. This scheme has become harmful, after 50-60 years of running due to the changes in structure and flow of the Bagmati river. The old project has become irrelevant and causes rather than reduces flooding and water stagnation. “The embankment constructions in Muzaffarpur district have caused the flow of several off-streams of the river, and will result in problems for those residing within the embankment as well as outside it.”, says CPIML activists in the area which has demanded for a review of the project. Moreover, besides flooding in the areas, the embankment construction also results in wastage of water and accumulation of silt.
The review committee must be allowed to function by providing sufficient resources and facilities as per the requirement.
