Visit Cyber_Bangladesh's POLITICS section for NEWS on FARAKKA AND TIPAIMUKH DAM Subject: Farakka Barrage causes concern Date: 10 May 1998 23:29:18 GMT From: bhattach@skynet.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya) Organization: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA Newsgroups: soc.culture.bengali,soc.culture.bangladesh ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 23:22:36 +0530 (GMT+5:30) From: "" FARAKKA BARRAGE CAUSES CONCERN, BOTH UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM Fish resources, flooding, a rise in river-banks... these and more problems are the fall-outs of the Farakka Barrage, one of the most debated river management projects, and a bone of contention for other reasons between India and Bangladesh. by Anil Prakash Civilisations have long thrived on river banks and the river basins have been their cradles. But whenever, human beings have tampered with nature and jeopardised riverine systems, civilisations have been threatened. Such a situation is looming ahead on account of the Farakka Barrage in the state of West Bengal in India. Unless the government initiates steps to review the project, large tracts of land in Bihar and West Bengal will be inundated. This would naturally lead to tremendous upheaval in the lives of several lakhs of people. The Farakka Barrage is one of the most debated river management projects though for reasons which have nothing to do with either environmental or demographic reasons. Built primarily to serve the twin purpose of regulating the amount of Ganga water to flow out from the Indian territory into Bangladesh (East Pakistan then); and to ensure that sufficient water is diverted to Hooghly river to enable the regular flushing of silt at Calcutta port, the Farakka Barrage has been more often mired in controversy as India and Bangladesh have disagreed over the share of Ganga water between the two countries. In the recent past, some efforts have been made to resolve this contentious dispute between the two nations, but no thought has been spared so far on the long term impact the barrage has already caused and continues to do on an ongoing basis. Commissioned in 1975, work on the project had been going on for long. The structure of the Barrage was completed as early as 1971 but the feeder canal which diverts water to the Bhagirathi river -- as the Hooghly is called at this point -- was completed only in 1975. By this time however, the cost of the project had escalated and when it was finally completed, the Farakka Barrage cost the nation Rs. 156.49 crore. That cost aside, few are willing to concede that the Barrage has caused irreversible harm to environment and society. The Farakka Barrage was greatly modelled on the lines of the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), one of the first major riverine projects undertaken by Nehruvian-influenced India. Both the DVC and the Bhakra project in the northern India were reflective of the government's viewpoint that river management projects in India needed to be modelled on Western lines, with its emphasis on large dams. In fact, plans for the DVC had already been drawn up by the British before independence during Lord Wavel's tenure as Governor General. The entire project was modelled on the lines of the Tennessee Valley Authority of America and its chief engineer was actually appointed by the government of Independent India as the Chief Administrator of the DVC. Great claims were made about the DVC, when initiated in the early fifties. Later, it became clear that the DVC made more areas in West Bengal prone to flood than before; the project's utility in irrigation programmes was minimal; and the bulk of electricity generated in the region was from thermal power stations. Besides, there was a sharp decline in the discharge capacity of the Damodar river. By 1959, the depth of Calcutta port had declined considerably after the construction of the Maithon and Panchet dams. Other local rivers also saw a decline in discharge capacity, adding to the rising bed of the Hooghly. By the late 1950s, large ships stopped coming to Calcutta port and instead opted for Diamond Harbour. These facts were not hidden from the policy planners when work on the Farakka Barrage was initiated. Yet, they chose to remain myopic and contended that the Barrage would flush out silt and mud from the Hooghly and thereby it would be possible to reclaim Calcutta port. In actual fact, till the DVC project had been initiated, the problem of Hooghly not getting desilted had never risen because of the nature and timing and force of the floods in the Damodar and Roopnarayan rivers. But once various dams came up in the course of the DVC, these rivers lost their capacity to flush the Hooghly thereby jeopardising Calcutta port. The Farraka Barrage was thus intended to correct a wrong step. However, as events have proved, the step taken to correct a previous wrong move also turned out to be a faulty and unwise decision. Warnings had been sounded early, but were not heeded. Twenty two years after the Farakka Barrage was commissioned, the desired objective of the project has not been realised. Instead, the barrage has given rise to a host of other environmental and demographic problems which unless attended to urgently, would cause greater havoc in the region. One alarming development has been the steady decline of the Ganga's depth. In 1975, when the barrage was commissioned, the depth of the river at the barrage was 75 feet. In March 1997, a visit to the area by this writer showed the depth of the river was only 13 feet. In effect, this means that the bed of Ganga has risen by 62 feet in the past 22 years. This alarming development has led to untold misery to the people of Bihar as the level of the bed of all rivers has risen steadily -- quite often to level higher that the land close to the banks of the rivers. As a result, thousands of chaurs (lowlands) that previously used to remain flooded only during the monsoons, now remain submerged under water for as long as ten months. Constant water logging not only leads to possibilities of the outbreak of infectious diseases, but also causes unfathomed economic and social miseries on the people in these regions. Due to submergence, soil becomes alkaline and already lakhs of acres of once fertile land in Bihar have now turned totally barren. The fertility of the Gangetic plain is a cruel image of yesteryears. This problem is acute in large parts of Bihar as various other river management projects like the Kosh project and the Gandak project also suffer from the same problem of rising level of river beds. Downstream too, there are problems. As the water discharged into the Bhagirathi and the Padma is devoid of any silt, the water tends to cut into the land more sharply than in the past. Soil erosion is being very acutely felt in villages and towns on the banks of the Bhagirathi. It is estimated that in Murshidabad district alone, more than 600 square kilometres of fertile land has been swept away and more than 500,000 people have been displaced in the past 22 years. Moreover, there are signs that the Ganga is trying to chalk a different course on account of the barrage. Local people in West Bengal have already formed an organisation named 'Ganga Bhangan Pratirodh Samiti' to mobilise public opinion, but there has been no response from official quarters so far. Besides water pollution, river management projects also wreak havoc among fish in these waters. These projects adversely affect the fishes which are migratory in nature. Dams and barrages act as barriers in their migratory paths and several species have either already become extinct or are facing extinction as they breed in a particular type of water while inhabiting in a different sort. Over the year, the Farakka barrage has acted as a barrier to the migration of marine fishes leading to the near absence of several popular varieties in the entire northern India. The Ganga once used to have plenty of Hilsas but this has changed as the fish is no longer able to breed leading to the near extinction of the Hilsas in the Ganga upstream of the Farakka Barrage. Hilsa inhabit marine waters, but migrate upstream to breed. Prior to the barrage, during monsoon, there used to be a very high population of eggs and spawns in this stretch of Ganga. After catering to the local needs -- there is great demand for fish in Bihar and eastern UP -- a substantial amount of eggs, prawns and different varieties of fishes used to send to other states. Today barely about 25 per cent of the local demand is met by the fish caught in this stretch and for the rest, the people have to depend on fish caught in other states. It has been estimated that there has been an overall decline of 75 per cent in the entire population of fish upstream of the Farakka Barrage. Large fishes, once found in abundance in the Ganga are no longer available and millions of traditional fishermen now face destitution. Fishermen in Bihar under the aegis of the Ganga Mukti Andolan are raising the issue of depleting population of fish in the Ganga. They are also beginning to involve the farmers in their struggle as they are reaching out to the peasantry by contending that mismanagement of the riverine projects is also leading to economic downfall on account of submergence and fertile tracts turning alkaline. Ganga Mukti Andolan has its origins in the unorganised resistance to the system of 'Panidari' in Bihar. Under this system, a handful of locally powerful people had commercial rights over a particular stretch of Ganga. They would not allow traditional fishermen to cast their nets unless they paid a substantial amount of tax. This system had been in operation since the time of the Mughal rulers and no one -- not even the affected fishermen -- had objected to it as long as the catch was sufficient. (Third World Network Features/PIRG Update) -(End)- About the writer: Anil Prakash can be contacted at Ganga Mukti Andolan, Kagaji Tola, Kahalgaon, Bhagalpur, Bihar. Credit mandatory to the Third World Network Features and the collaborating agency (PRIG Update). Reproduction rights granted on subscription to TWN. For subscription charges and other details contact us Subscribers are requested to send us cuttings of features reproduced.