The secretary of Water Resources Department (WRD) has already passed on the responsibility of recent Bagmati floods on the railways which is building a bridge near Runni Saidpur. It is necessary to say this because Mahesh Prasad Singh, Minister of Irrigation of Bihar had charged railways of causing floods in Kamla Basin under similar circumstances way back in 1965. The Railway Minister then at the Center was Dr Ram Subhag Singh, who hailed from Bihar. The entire episode makes very interesting reading.
History is repeating itself after a long gap and this is the time for the present Railway Minister to step in. It will be more entertaining now because different coalitions are ruling at Patna and Delhi. In 1965, it was Congress at both the places. The proposed dams in Nepal are in news again and the discussions over the issue is stale. Jagadanand, then Water Resource Minister of Bihar, asserted in Bihar Vidhan Sabha (22nd July 2002), ‘…Sir, the last point, no discharge control-no flood control. Unless the discharge is controlled, the scientists all over the world are convinced that the floods cannot be controlled…Embankments do not control the discharge, they can, at best, prevent water from spreading. Weak embankments cannot hold uncontrolled discharge and the flood will continue to bother us as a natural calamity. If we want to control floods in this state, we will have to control discharge in the upper riparian states and the neighboring countries. We have had negotiations with them and have unanimously agreed that to proceed jointly.’
In reply to a call attention motion of Ram Vilas Paswan regarding floods in Bihar, Arjun Charan Sethi, Minister of Water Resources at the Center told the Lok Sabha, on the 22nd August 2003, ‘…So far as Bihar is concerned, we are having constant interaction with the Government of Nepal because we all know these rivers originate from Nepal. Unless we have any kind of agreement with Nepal, this problem cannot be solved. The proposal for setting up of the Joint Project Office in Nepal for taking up field investigations and preparation of Detailed Project Report has since been approved. 100 officials from Nepal, and 42 officials from India are to carry out field investigations and studies. The project will inter alia have 269 meters high dam with an installed capacity of 3,300 MW and irrigation benefits accruing both to India and Nepal. In addition to Kosi Multipurpose Project, it will include Sun Kosi Diversion scheme as well.’Similar statement was made by Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, Central Minister of Water Resources, made a statement in Kishanganj on the 5th June in 2004. Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav, State Minister of Water Resources at the Center on the 24th June 2004, while talking to the press in New Delhi said that a sum of Rs. 29 Crores has been sanctioned for the construction of the Kosi High Dam (He must have meant that it was for the preparation of the DPR). As far as Barahkshetra Dam is concerned, the politicians in India are sticking to the same statement that dialogue with Nepal is on and on this is since 1947. Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav reiterated his statement again in 2005. The joint team is working in Nepal for the preparation of the DPR but its personnel are tight lipped over what they are going to propose and when.
The ghost of the Barahkshetra Dam haunts the planners, engineers and the politicians ever since the embanking plans of the Kosi was rejected in favor of a large dam by the Central Government in 1946 and the statements like the one given by Jagadanand, Arjun Charan Sethi, Das Munshi or Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav are a matter of routine in the flood season.The annual report of Water Resources Department of Bihar (2006-07) has already completed the formality of suggesting that the solution to the flood problems of Bihar lies in building dams in Nepal and wants the Center to expedite the negotiations. These negotiations are, however, going on for the past 60 years.
The factual position about these dams is that they are no way linked to flood control and the flood victims of North Bihar have been systematically fooled over years and they will suffer indefinitely at the hands of the politicians, engineers and the vested interests that are dangling carrots of these dams for decades. Here is the reason, why.There are three dams that often come as proposal to solve north Bihar problems. These are the Chisapani on the Kamla, the Nunthore dam on the Bagmati and the Barahkshetra on the Kosi. The Report of the Second Irrigation Commission of Bihar (1994) spells very clearly that there is no flood cushion provided in the proposed Chisapani Reservoir on the Kamla. (Vol. V, Part -1, p-511). A Report of the Expert Committee to study impact of interlinking of river on Bihar (April 2005, Chapter III, p-16) says, ‘…But the proposed Sapta Kosi Dam too has not been provided with any flood cushion which should be provided for flood moderation…’ Regarding the proposed Nunthore Dam on the Bagmati, the Second Bihar Irrigation Commission Report says, ‘…it appears clearly that even after the construction of dam at Nunthore, there would be no appreciable flood moderation in the middle and lower reaches of the Bagmati and obviously further supplementary floods managements measures would be needed’ (Vol. V Part-1, p-414). A recent report of WRD of Government of Bihar (GoB, May 2006) observes that ‘…but none of these schemes could come up as yet, and in near future also there is little hope of execution of these schemes (Chapter-V, p-1).’ Thus, there is neither any flood cushion provided in the design of the proposed dams nor there is any likelihood of the dams being built in near future.Inaugurating a seminar organized by the Water Resource Development Centre of Patna University on the 2nd March 2002, the Water Resource Secretary of the GoB said that, given the resources available with the Government, there was no possibility of a dam being built on the Kosi at Barahkshetra in the coming 50-60 years. This seminar was discussing the flood problem of the state and was attended by all the ‘Who is who’ of the technical fraternity of the state that included the many Chief Engineers of the Water Resources Department of Bihar. If that be so, the question is whether there is any interim plan to face the floods if the construction of the proposed dams in Nepal is not likely to be started in coming 50-60 years and even if it does, it will take another 15-20 years to complete the same so that the benefits of flood control could be tapped. The answer is-no.
By Dinesh Kumar Mishra
Showing posts with label Matters of Regions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matters of Regions. Show all posts
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
Monday, 11 June 2007
BIHAR'S BITTER HARVEST
Sugarcane farmers in West Champaran have not been paid for years bythe sugar factory in the district or the one across the border inNepal. Thanks to indifferent authorities, they have no one to turn to.
Lalchand Sarkar is distraught. He had to call off his daughter'swedding at the last minute as he didn't have enough money. "Thewedding plans have been dropped. I have to wait for my cane paymentfor god knows how many more years," lamented the 52-year-old farmerwho owns five acres of farmland in Bhedihanri, a village settled byrefugees from Bangladesh, situated close to the Indo-Nepal border inBihar's West Champaran district. Together, the Tirupati Sugar MillsLtd — the only sugar factory in West Champaran — and the BagmatiKhandsari Sugar Factory Pvt Ltd in Kudiya, across the border inNepal's Nawalparasi district, owe Sarkar Rs 75,000.
In the last ten odd years, thousands of sugarcane growers in WestChamparan have supplied their produce to the Bagmati Khandsari sugarfactory. Sugarcane has been smuggled across the border to Nepal fromBihar and Uttar Pradesh since the 1970s. Sugarcane growers in WestChamparan seem unaware that selling sugarcane across the border inNepal is illegal. And most of them have similar stories of paymentslong overdue.Sugarcane smuggling in West Champaran violates laws barring the saleof Indian raw materials in the international market and costs Indiaseveral crores annually in the form of lost cane cess, excise duty onsugar and molasses, and the local development funds for cane-growingareas paid by sugar mills.
It was the Bihar government's callous handling of relations betweenthe West Champaran cane growers and the Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltdforced the cane growers to sell their produce in Nepal in the firstplace. More than the farmers, it is the factory owners, the police,the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel guarding the Indo-Nepalborder, district administration officials and the Bihar SugarcaneDevelopment Department officials who have benefited from theclandestine trade in sugarcane. The smuggling continues despite thepresence of SSB guards along the "soft border".
Sugar factories in Nepal located close to the border have beensourcing cane from across the border because of low cane production inNepal's hilly terai areas. While a majority of West Champaran'sfarmers have not been paid in full or not paid at all by factory atKudiya in Nepal, located six kilometres from Valmikinagar, the ownersof the Bagmati Khandsari Sugar Factory, the cane-supply agentsappointed by it, West Champaran administration officials and, to someextent, SSB personnel — all have benefited from the smuggling.The SSB functions under the Union home ministry which woke up to thefact of the smuggling only recently. In the first week of March, theministry sent circulars to the SSB asking it to "stop smuggling ofsugarcane from India for use in Nepalese factories." After thecircular was issued, the SSB stepped up its vigil on the borders butthe sudden denial of passage to Indian cane growers accustomed toyears of unrestricted smuggling into Nepal led to agitations anddemonstrations, in which a West Champaran district administrationexecutive magistrate was gravely injured.
Thousands of cane farmers demonstrated at the international border atthe Gandak Barrage in Valmikinagar (in West Champaran) in Marchdemanding permission to carry tractor-loads of sugarcane to Bagmati inNepal.
The SSB and the West Champaran district administration blame eachother for the smuggling, and the cane growers blame the Bihargovernment and the Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltd. Located at Bagaha in WestChamparan district, the factory owes the area's cane growers about Rs14 crore. Half that amount is due from the current season's produce;the other half has been pending since the 1998-99 season.
THE SHAHS
Shankar Shah, his wife Chandana Rani and father Ashutosh Shah (extremeright), with the sugarcane supply receipts issued to them by theBagmati Khandsari Sugar Mills Pvt Ltd situated in Kudia in Nepal. Shahsays that the factory owner, Rohit Shrestha, pointed his revolver athim when he met him at his factory in January 2007 and asked for hispending dues. "He took many of my receipts and tore them in front ofme. He then asked me to run if I wanted to live. I have no money totreat my serious eye injury. My children cannot study, and I cannotprovide any medical care to my aging father," Shankar told Tehelka athis home at Bhedihanri village near Valmikinagar.
The factory, owned by Kolkata-based industrialist Manoj Poddar, hasbeen so erratic in the payment of dues owed to the cane growers overthe past decade that most of them have been forced to smuggle theirproduce to the factory across the border in Nepal hoping for early andhigh payments. The crushing capacity of the Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltdis a low 25,000 quintals per day and farmers are obliged to carrytheir cane to the Nepali factory to avoid the drying and wastage oftheir sugarcane."
We cane growers are like the state government and the sugar factory'sbonded labourers. Because our farms fall in the reserved area of thefactory at Bagaha, we are prevented from supplying our produce toother factories in Bihar, which make timely and better payment. TheBihar Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply and Purchase) Act, 1981, is adraconian law modelled on the laws in force during the British era. Ithas forced us to indulge in smuggling," said Mohammad Issa, a canegrower at Paras Nagar village in Bagaha, who is owed Rs 22,000 by theBagmati factory in Nepal and Rs 40,000 by Tirupati Sugar Mills in Bagaha.
There have been frequent demands by cane growers' associations for theabolition of the act so that farmers no longer have to depend on thewhims of a single factory. "This act is similar to the British lawsgoverning indigo cultivation in this area decades ago. While the Bihargovernment has never cared to implement the pro-farmer provisions andspirit of this act, factory owners have colluded with cane developmentauthorities to violate the act's provisions and keep thousands of poorfarmers perennially in distress," Raj Kaushal Mishra, aValmikinagar-based cane grower and general secretary of the BiharKisan Sangh told Tehelka. "With the sugar factory still cheatingfarmers and the laws preventing farmers from taking their produce tofactories of their choice, fewer and fewer farmers will opt forsugarcane farming in the coming years."
Apart from the Tirupati Sugar Mill's erratic payment schedules, whatmakes farmers in West Champaran opt for the Bagmati sugar factory arethe incentives it provides them. These include pre-season advanceamounts, higher cane prices and transport facilities. Sources in the SSB said that over 40 of Bagmati Sugar Factory's tractor-trolleys arein operation in Valmikinagar to carry the cane across the border. Thefactory's owner, Rohit Shrestha, has been "blacklisted" by the Nepalgovernment for tax related irregularities. He couldn't be contacteddespite repeated attempts by Tehelka.
THE SAHNIS
Laxman Sahni of village Paras Nagar in Bagaha, West Champarandistrict, displays sugarcane supply receipts issued to him year afteryear by Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltd. in Bagaha. Sahni supplied sugarcaneworth Rs 30,000 to the factory this season alone. He has yet toreceive any payment. "I have encashed many of my older factoryreceipts from rich people at 40 percent cuts because I needed themoney badly to grow sugarcane on my six acres of farmland and to sendmy children to school," Laxman told Tehelka. Sahni's farmlands lieacross the Gandak river and are accessible only by boat.
Another reason behind sugarcane smuggling is that large tracts ofcane-growing areas, lying in the Gandak river's sprawling diara —large tracts of land which are surrounded by water — are not claimedas reserved areas by sugar factories either in Bihar or in UP. This isbecause of the unclear demarcation of inter-state borders and theabsence of revenue villages in the diara lands along the Gandak.
Measuring as much as 35 km across at several places, the Gandak'sdiara lands have a bountiful harvest of cane.
Before the SSB was deployed along the Indo-Nepal border four yearsago, there was no hindrance to taking sugarcane to Nepal. With Kudiyajust six kilometres from Valmikinagar, it has always been much easierfor growers to take their produce there than to Bagaha, which is 45 kmaway and accessible only through a potholed, rundown road which passesthrough dense forest.
Compounding the cane-growers' woes are the nearly 2,000 independentcane crushers operating in the Tirupati Sugar Mill's reserved area.Most of these crushers are illegal and they give loans to needyfarmers during the growing season. When the cane is ready, theyforcibly seize it, often at half the price offered by the sugarfactories. "Truckloads of treacle and molasses produced by thecrushers are smuggled into Bangladesh via Nepal through the Indo-Nepalborder, giving the crusher owners a good profit. SSB personnel gethandsome bribes in the bargain," local farmers said.
The SSB denies there is any sugarcane smuggling. "Before the SSB'sdeployment, smuggling was rampant. These days it's stopped altogether,which is why the farmers had to demonstrate [in arch]. There arecertain elements on both sides of the border who want the smuggling tocontinue and these people instigated the farmers to demonstrate,"SSB's 12th Battalion Commandant HR Barot told Tehelka.When contacted, Bihar sugarcane development minister Nitish Mishrasaid that that the government had not received any reports ofsmuggling. "We're trying our best to improve the farmers' conditions.Legal action is being taken against the Bagaha sugar factory forcheating farmers. Many of the cane growers' problems will be solvedonce our proposed sugar factories are set up," Mishra said.VK Tulsyan, vice-president of Tirupati Sugar Mill Ltd, told Tehelka:"
We will clear the dues owed to the farmers and the workers once asuitable package is announced by the Bihar government. We're alsoplanning capacity expansion in the near future, depending on howconducive the environment is." Forty-two cases were registered against Tirupati Sugar Mill by the West Champaran District Magistrate MihirKumar in February for habitual non- payment of dues to cane growersand mill workers. The total money owed adds up to Rs 13 crore. Thecases are currently pending in the Patna High Court.
By Anand ST Das
Valmikinagar (West Champaran)
Courtsey Tehelka
Lalchand Sarkar is distraught. He had to call off his daughter'swedding at the last minute as he didn't have enough money. "Thewedding plans have been dropped. I have to wait for my cane paymentfor god knows how many more years," lamented the 52-year-old farmerwho owns five acres of farmland in Bhedihanri, a village settled byrefugees from Bangladesh, situated close to the Indo-Nepal border inBihar's West Champaran district. Together, the Tirupati Sugar MillsLtd — the only sugar factory in West Champaran — and the BagmatiKhandsari Sugar Factory Pvt Ltd in Kudiya, across the border inNepal's Nawalparasi district, owe Sarkar Rs 75,000.
In the last ten odd years, thousands of sugarcane growers in WestChamparan have supplied their produce to the Bagmati Khandsari sugarfactory. Sugarcane has been smuggled across the border to Nepal fromBihar and Uttar Pradesh since the 1970s. Sugarcane growers in WestChamparan seem unaware that selling sugarcane across the border inNepal is illegal. And most of them have similar stories of paymentslong overdue.Sugarcane smuggling in West Champaran violates laws barring the saleof Indian raw materials in the international market and costs Indiaseveral crores annually in the form of lost cane cess, excise duty onsugar and molasses, and the local development funds for cane-growingareas paid by sugar mills.
It was the Bihar government's callous handling of relations betweenthe West Champaran cane growers and the Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltdforced the cane growers to sell their produce in Nepal in the firstplace. More than the farmers, it is the factory owners, the police,the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel guarding the Indo-Nepalborder, district administration officials and the Bihar SugarcaneDevelopment Department officials who have benefited from theclandestine trade in sugarcane. The smuggling continues despite thepresence of SSB guards along the "soft border".
Sugar factories in Nepal located close to the border have beensourcing cane from across the border because of low cane production inNepal's hilly terai areas. While a majority of West Champaran'sfarmers have not been paid in full or not paid at all by factory atKudiya in Nepal, located six kilometres from Valmikinagar, the ownersof the Bagmati Khandsari Sugar Factory, the cane-supply agentsappointed by it, West Champaran administration officials and, to someextent, SSB personnel — all have benefited from the smuggling.The SSB functions under the Union home ministry which woke up to thefact of the smuggling only recently. In the first week of March, theministry sent circulars to the SSB asking it to "stop smuggling ofsugarcane from India for use in Nepalese factories." After thecircular was issued, the SSB stepped up its vigil on the borders butthe sudden denial of passage to Indian cane growers accustomed toyears of unrestricted smuggling into Nepal led to agitations anddemonstrations, in which a West Champaran district administrationexecutive magistrate was gravely injured.
Thousands of cane farmers demonstrated at the international border atthe Gandak Barrage in Valmikinagar (in West Champaran) in Marchdemanding permission to carry tractor-loads of sugarcane to Bagmati inNepal.
The SSB and the West Champaran district administration blame eachother for the smuggling, and the cane growers blame the Bihargovernment and the Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltd. Located at Bagaha in WestChamparan district, the factory owes the area's cane growers about Rs14 crore. Half that amount is due from the current season's produce;the other half has been pending since the 1998-99 season.
THE SHAHS
Shankar Shah, his wife Chandana Rani and father Ashutosh Shah (extremeright), with the sugarcane supply receipts issued to them by theBagmati Khandsari Sugar Mills Pvt Ltd situated in Kudia in Nepal. Shahsays that the factory owner, Rohit Shrestha, pointed his revolver athim when he met him at his factory in January 2007 and asked for hispending dues. "He took many of my receipts and tore them in front ofme. He then asked me to run if I wanted to live. I have no money totreat my serious eye injury. My children cannot study, and I cannotprovide any medical care to my aging father," Shankar told Tehelka athis home at Bhedihanri village near Valmikinagar.
The factory, owned by Kolkata-based industrialist Manoj Poddar, hasbeen so erratic in the payment of dues owed to the cane growers overthe past decade that most of them have been forced to smuggle theirproduce to the factory across the border in Nepal hoping for early andhigh payments. The crushing capacity of the Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltdis a low 25,000 quintals per day and farmers are obliged to carrytheir cane to the Nepali factory to avoid the drying and wastage oftheir sugarcane."
We cane growers are like the state government and the sugar factory'sbonded labourers. Because our farms fall in the reserved area of thefactory at Bagaha, we are prevented from supplying our produce toother factories in Bihar, which make timely and better payment. TheBihar Sugarcane (Regulation of Supply and Purchase) Act, 1981, is adraconian law modelled on the laws in force during the British era. Ithas forced us to indulge in smuggling," said Mohammad Issa, a canegrower at Paras Nagar village in Bagaha, who is owed Rs 22,000 by theBagmati factory in Nepal and Rs 40,000 by Tirupati Sugar Mills in Bagaha.
There have been frequent demands by cane growers' associations for theabolition of the act so that farmers no longer have to depend on thewhims of a single factory. "This act is similar to the British lawsgoverning indigo cultivation in this area decades ago. While the Bihargovernment has never cared to implement the pro-farmer provisions andspirit of this act, factory owners have colluded with cane developmentauthorities to violate the act's provisions and keep thousands of poorfarmers perennially in distress," Raj Kaushal Mishra, aValmikinagar-based cane grower and general secretary of the BiharKisan Sangh told Tehelka. "With the sugar factory still cheatingfarmers and the laws preventing farmers from taking their produce tofactories of their choice, fewer and fewer farmers will opt forsugarcane farming in the coming years."
Apart from the Tirupati Sugar Mill's erratic payment schedules, whatmakes farmers in West Champaran opt for the Bagmati sugar factory arethe incentives it provides them. These include pre-season advanceamounts, higher cane prices and transport facilities. Sources in the SSB said that over 40 of Bagmati Sugar Factory's tractor-trolleys arein operation in Valmikinagar to carry the cane across the border. Thefactory's owner, Rohit Shrestha, has been "blacklisted" by the Nepalgovernment for tax related irregularities. He couldn't be contacteddespite repeated attempts by Tehelka.
THE SAHNIS
Laxman Sahni of village Paras Nagar in Bagaha, West Champarandistrict, displays sugarcane supply receipts issued to him year afteryear by Tirupati Sugar Mills Ltd. in Bagaha. Sahni supplied sugarcaneworth Rs 30,000 to the factory this season alone. He has yet toreceive any payment. "I have encashed many of my older factoryreceipts from rich people at 40 percent cuts because I needed themoney badly to grow sugarcane on my six acres of farmland and to sendmy children to school," Laxman told Tehelka. Sahni's farmlands lieacross the Gandak river and are accessible only by boat.
Another reason behind sugarcane smuggling is that large tracts ofcane-growing areas, lying in the Gandak river's sprawling diara —large tracts of land which are surrounded by water — are not claimedas reserved areas by sugar factories either in Bihar or in UP. This isbecause of the unclear demarcation of inter-state borders and theabsence of revenue villages in the diara lands along the Gandak.
Measuring as much as 35 km across at several places, the Gandak'sdiara lands have a bountiful harvest of cane.
Before the SSB was deployed along the Indo-Nepal border four yearsago, there was no hindrance to taking sugarcane to Nepal. With Kudiyajust six kilometres from Valmikinagar, it has always been much easierfor growers to take their produce there than to Bagaha, which is 45 kmaway and accessible only through a potholed, rundown road which passesthrough dense forest.
Compounding the cane-growers' woes are the nearly 2,000 independentcane crushers operating in the Tirupati Sugar Mill's reserved area.Most of these crushers are illegal and they give loans to needyfarmers during the growing season. When the cane is ready, theyforcibly seize it, often at half the price offered by the sugarfactories. "Truckloads of treacle and molasses produced by thecrushers are smuggled into Bangladesh via Nepal through the Indo-Nepalborder, giving the crusher owners a good profit. SSB personnel gethandsome bribes in the bargain," local farmers said.
The SSB denies there is any sugarcane smuggling. "Before the SSB'sdeployment, smuggling was rampant. These days it's stopped altogether,which is why the farmers had to demonstrate [in arch]. There arecertain elements on both sides of the border who want the smuggling tocontinue and these people instigated the farmers to demonstrate,"SSB's 12th Battalion Commandant HR Barot told Tehelka.When contacted, Bihar sugarcane development minister Nitish Mishrasaid that that the government had not received any reports ofsmuggling. "We're trying our best to improve the farmers' conditions.Legal action is being taken against the Bagaha sugar factory forcheating farmers. Many of the cane growers' problems will be solvedonce our proposed sugar factories are set up," Mishra said.VK Tulsyan, vice-president of Tirupati Sugar Mill Ltd, told Tehelka:"
We will clear the dues owed to the farmers and the workers once asuitable package is announced by the Bihar government. We're alsoplanning capacity expansion in the near future, depending on howconducive the environment is." Forty-two cases were registered against Tirupati Sugar Mill by the West Champaran District Magistrate MihirKumar in February for habitual non- payment of dues to cane growersand mill workers. The total money owed adds up to Rs 13 crore. Thecases are currently pending in the Patna High Court.
By Anand ST Das
Valmikinagar (West Champaran)
Courtsey Tehelka
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
