Patna: More than two millennia ago, when Pataligama, modern Patna, was little more than a settlement on the banks of the Ganga, Gautama Buddha is said to have foreseen its transformation into a great city and warned that it would remain vulnerable to fire, floods and internal discord.Today, as the Ganga swells around Patna and large parts of Bihar again face the threat of inundation, that ancient warning sounds less like a distant prophecy and more like an uncomfortable reminder from history.More than five million people in 14 districts of north Bihar have already been affected by floods this year, with breaches in embankments worsening the situation. Patna, too, is increasingly vulnerable as the Ganga rises and low-lying areas come under pressure.For Bihar, floods are nothing new. Nearly 68,800 sq km, more than 70% of the state’s geographical area, is considered flood-prone, making Bihar India’s most flood-affected state. The rivers that have enriched its fertile plains with fresh alluvial deposits have also repeatedly brought devastation.The irony is that decades of attempts to “control” these rivers through embankments have done little to eliminate the problem.When the National Flood Control Policy was introduced in 1954, Bihar had about 160 km of embankments and around 2.5 million hectares were considered flood-prone. By 2004, the embankment network had expanded to about 3,465 km, but the flood-prone area had risen to nearly 6.89 million hectares.Patna University geology expert Atul Aditya Pandey described the impact of embankments as disastrous, arguing that riverbeds in several north Bihar rivers have risen because natural river processes have been obstructed. Even areas supposedly protected from floods suffer from waterlogging and salinity.Former Geological Survey of India director N Dayal said Bihar’s flood problem cannot be addressed without understanding the region’s extraordinary geological setting — the world’s youngest and steepest mountain system, the Himalayas, followed by an exceptionally flat alluvial plain.“Any flood management system should essentially take note of this feature,” he stressed.Retired NIT Patna civil engineering teacher Santosh Kumar argued technology should be used not merely to obstruct floods but to harness their benefits through better land-use planning. “A river’s natural regime should be given its due appreciation before embarking on any engineering response to contain it,” he said.He also advocated rejuvenating Bihar’s traditional “dhars” — natural channels that once carried floodwater and provided drainage.The Kosi offers the most dramatic warning. Known as the “Sorrow of Bihar”, it breached its embankment at Kusaha in Nepal in 2008 and reclaimed an old channel, affecting millions.The message from history is stark: Bihar cannot permanently imprison its rivers, Kumar said.
