Comments on Bihar's Draft Water Policy

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

 

The following forwarded mail from Dr. Dinesh Mishra refers to Bihar's Draft Water Policy circulated through the link

 

http://wrd.bih.nic.in/download/SWP_2009.pdf

 

for our comments and suggestion for improvement. The circular is in Hindi. I request you to pl. forward your suggestions etc. to  <wrd-bih

 

You can send comments on Dr. Mishra's suggestion to Dr. Mishra.

 

vns

---------- Forwarded message ----------Dinesh Mishra <dkmishra108

2009/11/29Fwd: Comments on Bihar's Draft Water Policy

Dera All,

 

Government of Bihar, Water Resources Department has put up a draft of its water policy and asked for people's feed back on it. I had sent my comments to them and I am enclosing the same here for your reference. You may have many more things to say on this policy matter. Please do it fast. The policy draft is available on the Bihar Governments' site on the internet. This is in Hindi.

 

Barh Mukti Abhiyan is organizing a series of meetings all over Bihar to understand the implications of the proposed policy draft so that many more responses can be sent to WRD before they finalize the plocy. This is the time to raise your voice and please use that prerogative. In case you find it difficult to download the policy draft, please let me know immediately, I will send you the hard copy.

 

Please forward this mail to all your contacts.

 

Dinesh Kumar Mishra

Convenor-Barh Mukti Abhiyan

6-B Rajiv Nagar

Patna 800024

29th November 2009

Mob: +919431303360

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------Dinesh Mishra <dkmishra108

Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 11:58 AMComments on Bihar's Draft Water Policy " wrd-bih " <wrd-bih

 

To

Er. (Ms.) Devi Rajak

Engineer-in-Chief (Central)

Deaprtment of Water Resources

Sinchai Bhawan

Government of Bihar

Patna.

 

Madam,

This has reference to the draft Irrigation Policy of Bihar State. I will like you to consider the following points, 

 

Page -1 Please say that it is about the time that something must be done to control the population because there should be lid to the rise of population. The politicians will never say so and as one managing the resources, it is our duty to underline the need for it.

Page – 2 Section 1.9 While giving irrigation potential of the state, it would also be interesting if you could kindly give the actual irrigation figure of the last three years. This will make the picture more clear and will bring in the face of accountability and transparency.

 

 

Section 1.10: Will you please add why nothing has been done so far ion the front of clearing water logging – lack of political will, lack of resources, lack of planning, lack of data or changing topography of the land?

 

Section 2.0 Page 4:This section makes a disgusting reading. WRD has never been able to achieve a target of 100 % crop intensity even in the Kosi or the Gandak basin where there is no dearth of water. How will you achieve 250 % crop intensity? This is just to mislead public and appease politicians. Please , please make it realistic.

 

 

Section 2.0 / iv Again here, we all know that we do not have the entire river basin with us, at least in case of North Bihar. YOU CANNOT PLAN ON A BASINWISE APPROACH AND YOU KNOW VERY WELL WHAT NEPAL IS GOING TO DO WITH YOUR PLANS. 

Section 2.0 / vii The state Government has never been serious about rehabilitating people displaced due to construction of embankments. Kosi, Mahananda, Bagmati, Kamla, Burhi Gandak are striking cases of such negligence. Please do not raise false hopes in the mind of people. 

Section 2.0 / viii This is a political agenda already rubbished by Rahul Gandhi and his Party will never allow that to happen.  

Section 2.0 / ix  De-silting rivers will be a futile exercise because the sill level of the gates of the barrage at Farakka is fixed and all the bed levels of the tributaries of the river would be guided by that. Any such project will only be a money spinning project without any fruitful result. This will benefit only the vested interests, they are getting benefitted anyway.

 

Section  2.12,  I think there is enough reason to withdraw this.

Section 4.1 (kh) This is in contrast to building dams and our chaura are too shallow to accommodate any extra storage.

Section 7.11 I wish you had said something about those living on the embankments. These are the people dislodged from their homes and hearths because of the faulty projects of the WRD. They are not encroachers but driven to that state because of water logging , sand casting and erosion for which the state has no obligations or policy. Even if it may have one, there is no intention to do anything for them.

Section 12.1 When will the state government have its rehabilitation policy, any time frame? The history of the government rehabilitation as appalling. Rule of the game should be that the displaced persons are rehabilitated first and then only the project work should start. Otherwise, they will be taken for a ride as ever.

Section 13.0 The section is incomplete. If the state promises irrigation and fails to provide it, will the WRD be accountable to it? What will happen to the land that gets waterlogged or sand cast because of the callous attitude of  irrigation technocracy? Will the farmers get compensated of the crop loss for no fault of theirs?

Section 14.1 People’s participation is a misnomer. There was a Chintan Shivir organized in May 2006 in WALMI for managing water resources of the state. That platform was used by the state to declare its river linking program and inform people of the decisions already taken by the state. So many people were fooled in the name of participation. Please drop this unwanted clause. We all know that the state is not interested in listening to any suggestion from the public.

Section 18.5 If fresh embankments are needed within the embankments, does it mean that earlier embankments were designed casually? How about rehabilitating the victims of such channelizing efforts of the state? I understand this was reccommended by SC Jha’s Special Task Force but the work on it had started much before the publication of the report in the Kosi basin , at least. The people there are threatened with dire consequences if they happen to question the construction.

Section 18.11 The policy draft is silent about erosion victims. Please put a word of sympathy to erosion victims so that the state does not quote you saying that the state water policy is silent or averse to any favour to them.

 

 

There is proof mistake in the 4th line of this section. It should read “ punarsthapan kaafi kharcheela na ho†instead of “ Punarsthapan kaafi kharcheela hoâ€.

 

Section 22.0 Thank you for including this. Please add that once the policy is approved this work will be taken up on war footing and those found guilty of lapses will be suitably punished.

Section 24.4 Will you please add the action taken against guilty officials who prepare bogus bills, extort money from the farmers on the pretext of police action in case of default and public humiliation?

Section 25.3 This is possible only when water is available in suggested quantities. Let the state run the schemes successfully for a continuous period of three years and then negotiate with the farmers if they are willing to take over? The land between the retired line and the western embankment was about 52 hectares and there was waist deep water over 40 hectares in Dalwa. There were 47 families in this village with a population of 241. Of this 92 persons from 22 families had to be shifted to safer places on the embankment in the tents built of tarpaulin, according to official sources.

 

 

Dr. Dinesh Kumar Mishra B.Sc., B.Tech (Hons.), M.Tech., Ph.D., FIE(I).

Convenor – Barh Mukti Abhiyan

6-B, Rajiv Nagar

Patna 800024

Mob: +919431303360

E-MAIL: dkmishra108

20th October 2009 -- Dr.V.N.Sharma

Mob 9431102680,Member, Secretariat & Member-Secretary, Organising Committee for Parliament RallyAll India Forum for Right to Education (AIF-RTE)http://tinyurl.com/drvnsharma

" Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act. " Albert Einstein " The only thing necessary for Evil to Flourish is for good men to do nothing " Edmund Burke