Nitish reviews Bihar flood situation (Hindu 26 September 2011)

No respite: Vehicles trudging through a waterlogged road after heavy rain lashed Patna on Sunday. -Photo: Ranjeet Kumar
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday reviewed the flood situation in several districts, with rivers Sone and Ganga in spate after release of over nine lakh cusecs from Indrapuri barrage.
The Chief Minister, who spoke to the district officials of Rohtas, Aurangabad, Arwal, Bhojpur, Saran, Patna, Munger and Bhagalpur, directed them to issue alert and warn people about the flood situation.
Kumar also held a review meeting with the Water Resources Development (WRD) Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, Chief Secretary Anup Mukherjee, WRD Principal Secretary Afzal Amanullah and Disaster Management Principal Secretary Vyasji.
He urged the officials to constantly monitor the situation and carry out rescue and relief works as required.
The meetings took place in the backdrop of 9.58 lakh cusecs of water, the highest since 1975, being discharged from Indrapuri barrage this morning.
While the water level in Sone river has abated from this afternoon bringing respite to the central districts, the surging Ganga water flooded Haldichapra and moved downstream to Digha and Gandhighat at Patna on way to Hathidah, Munger, Bhagalpur and Kahalgaon, official sources said.
The Punpun river too was in spate and flowing 1.93 meters above danger mark due to incessant rains since the past three-four days, they said.
In view of the sitution, the WRD minister has cancelled the leaves of the engineers till October 15 next and postponed the State-level meeting of the WRD engineers that was scheduled to be held in Patna on September 29-30, the sources added.
The Minister said he will write letters to his counterparts in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand saying they had given wrong information to Bihar about release of water from their dams/barrages. “The authorities in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand discharge more water during floods than the quantum intimated to Bihar, while during drought situation, the release of water was less than promised for irrigation,” he alleged. This led to a piquant situation for the State government in management of water resources, the Minister said.