Review Six-decades Old Bagamati River Project, Stop Construction of Embankments
The Chas Vaas Jeevan Bachao Sangharsh Morcha’s Convenor Jitendra Kumar has demanded to immediately hold a Review Committee meeting to decide about the construction of embankments in Bagamati River Project in Bihar. The Review Committee was scheduled to meet on December 22 in Muzaffarpur but this was cancelled because most of its members did not reach owing to lack of preparations and proper intimation to members. Ironically this meeting was decided after many years of committee formation. The Sangharsh Morcha leader Jitendra Kumar has said that the CM Nitish Kumar must explain why this meeting could not be held.
The Sangharsh Morcha has demanded to make this committee effectively work in the interest of the people of the state. On 22 December Sangharsh Morcha sent a memorandum to the Chief Minister demanding to hold a meeting of the review committee, as well as to provide all kind of administrative and financial support to its members so that they can investigate the geography of the region, hold on the spot inspections, and make a dialogue with the affected population. The Morcha also demanded to hold a socio-economic and cultural survey in the areas where embankments have already been constructed, and most importantly, to conduct an environmental impact assessment. Jitendra Kumar has demanded to include at least two members of the Bagamati Sangharsh movement into the Review Committee.
Dhirendra Jha, Politburo member of CPIML, has said that during the last six decades there has been immense changes in the structure and flow of many rivers, hence there must be a review of old projects. The embankments built during last years are now causing devastation and displacements. This project in its old format will now also be implemented in districts like Darbhanga and Samastipur, extending the same environmental destruction to newer areas.
The people of Bihar, Water and River experts and academics have been opposing this now irrelevant project for a long time. In Muzaffarpur district government is continuing building embankments in spite of the fact that many small streams have been flowing outside them and these embankments themselves have become a cause for floods and other types of destruction.
