Bihar CM blames Farakka
Nitish Kumar, chief minister of eastern Indian state of Bihar, yesterday appeared to blame the Farakka barrage on the river Ganges for silt deposits and causing the current floods in his state as he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Due to silt, the Ganges could not retain the amount of water it used to, leading to flood-like condition despite not receiving proportionate amount of rain fall, he told the media after the meeting.
Kumar sought Modi's intervention for de-silting the river and said this was the only solution to avoid the almost annual occurrence of floods.
Modi assured Kumar of immediate and positive action, including formulating a national silt management policy, Kumar said.
“The very serious condition that we see today never occurred earlier. The only way to get rid of this is silt extraction. There is a need for national silt management policy,” the Bihar chief minister said.
Kumar expressed concern that the situation can only worsen if it was not dealt with effectively and the state would have to face more severe consequences in the coming years.
On Sunday, Kumar told reporters in Patna, capital of Bihar, that the silt deposited in the Ganges after the construction of Farakka was responsible for the floods and asked the federal Indian government to remove the dam or come out with a silt-management policy.
"The current flood situation has been caused by silt deposits of the river Ganga. This situation is the result of silt getting deposited in Ganga after construction of the Farakka dam. The only way to remove silt from the river is to remove the dam," Kumar told reporters after the review meeting on flood situation in Bihar.
“If the federal government has any option [other than removing the dam], then it should start working on it,” he added.
In his Independence Day (August 15) address, Kumar had raised the issue saying that the depth of the Ganga had reduced following the silt deposition in the river due to the construction of dam at Farakka.
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