Amarjeet Sharma
Patna: The idiom ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’ resonates well with the lives of the residents of Danapur Diara, located about 15 km from Bihar’s capital. On one side is the fear of erosion, and on the other is fear of floods. This has been the case for last 46 years.
Things were no different this time when Danapur Diara came under the grip of floods on August 5, when 13,42,097 cusecs of water were released into River Son from Indrapuri barrage in Rohtas in a single day. As floodwaters entered the Ganga and submerged their fields, people anxiously watched through the night with a prayer on their lips.
Danapur Diara or Diara is an island in the middle of Ganga adjacent to Danapur city. It falls under 11 panchayats, of which six are in Danapur sub-division, four in Saran sub-division and one in Patna Sadar sub-division. These panchayats together have 75 villages within them, with a total population of about 5 lakh.
The waves from Son-Ganga hit one side of Danapur Diara, while the waves from Ganga hit the other side. In the middle, the land of Danapur Diara is decreasing due to erosion, and the displaced villagers are settling at Danapur-Shahpur area in Patna district.
The gravity of the situation becomes clear when one realises that 15 villages have submerged in the Ganga from 1978 to 2013. Purani Panapur seems to be next in line. A slight erosion, and the village will disappear forever.
“Erosion of the Diara started in 1978, when the water level of the Ganga rose and fell. The river that used to flow northward passing through the confluence of Ganga and Saraswati near Maner started flowing southwards and swallowed 15 villages in its wake. The government of that time did not pay any attention to erosion,” said Rambhajan Singh Yadav, national president, All India Flood, Drought and Erosion Victims Struggle Front, who has been working for more than 50 years to save Diara.
According to him, 4 lakh people have been affected by floods since 1978. However, the government could permanently settle only 500 people from Jhauri Tola at an agricultural farm in Danapur. The rest of the people were shifted only temporarily and left to fend for themselves.
Rambhajan recalled how the front had launched a hunger strike on behalf of Diara residents in 1990, following which the then-CM Lalu Prasad met them and listened to their problems. Measures to check erosion started since then, which had a positive effect.
Six of the total 11 panchayats of Danapur Diara fall under Patliputra Lok Sabha constituency, one under Patna Sahib constituency and four under Saran constituency. As for Assembly constituencies, six panchayats (Purani Panapur, Manas, Kasimchak, Palanapur, Gangahara and Hetanpur) are in Danapur, one (Nakata) in Digha and five panchayats (Oath, Sahilpur, Hasilpur and Akilpur) in Sonpur constituency.
The people of Diara have another pain. The Pipa Bridge, established when Lalu became MLA of Danapur Assembly constituency in 1995, is closed to traffic when water in the Ganga rises. “We then have to rely on boats to reach Danapur. There have been many boat accidents, in which many people have lost their lives. We have held protests demanding that a permanent bridge be constructed instead of the pontoon bridge,” said Omprakash Yadav, a former zila parishad member of Danapur.
Not only this, there have been many agitations to prevent erosion of Diara, after which the government did boulder pitching and geo bag pitching from Hetanpur to Panapur, but the geo bags burst repeatedly, which meant repeated repair by the Son Ganga Flood Protection Division and a huge expense for the government.
“When a geo bag bursts, it is repaired by filling sand in the plastic bag. If it is not capable of being repaired, an estimate is prepared and presented before the officials concerned to undertake repair work,” Shishir Kumar, Executive Engineer, Ganga-Sone Flood Protection Division, Patna, told 101Reporters.
Meanwhile, Omprakash said the villagers believed that pitching done in a solid way by placing big boulders can prevent erosion, but the government always tried to stop erosion by installing geo bags.
“Despite having three Assembly and three Lok Sabha constituencies, no MP or MLA raised voice to get these demands fulfilled,” he claimed.
“Boulder and geo bag pitching was done in 500 meters from near Kashim Chak Hanuman Temple to Panapur, but work on 400 meters is pending. This is why the fear of erosion keeps haunting us,” said Mritunjay Kumar, a resident of Purani Panapur in Danapur Diara.
According to former zila parishad member Om Prakash Rai, who lives in Bishanpur under Kasimchak panchayat, Diara can be connected to Patna city and a stream of development can flow in if the government constructed a permanent bridge and ring dam and made proper arrangements to check erosion.
“I also have land in Diara where I take up cultivation now. We have stopped living there and have built another house at Danapur,” Om Prakash added.
No wonder families that used to keep servants in their houses live in huts today and are forced to work as labourers to feed their families.
Baswant Ram lived at Purani Panapur’s Mahadalit Tola before the village came under the grip of erosion in 2013. Today, he comes to the Ganga’s banks at Nasriganj in Danapur block with his grandson and keeps looking at the waters there.
“We used to spend happy days with the family and villagers at Diara. Nothing is left now. We do not have a permanent house; we live in a hut and earn a living by doing labour,” he said.
“When our village submerged, 159 households were given cheap land on the Ganga’s banks at Mahinama in Maner. We did not move there and are living like nomads,” Ram said.
The people settled by the government have not received possession certificates yet, due to which the fear of eviction also looms large. Those from Nakata Diara and Bind Toli took shelter in Digha and Rajiv Nagar, while those in Navdiari and Chakia Tola are in Shahpur and Sherpur. Those from Dalip Chak are in Daudpur Shahpur, and those from Bada Kashimchak, Chhota Kashim Chak, Bakshi Tola and Gosai Tola are in Mathiapur and Nitish Aahar.
The people of Jhai Tola were settled at an agricultural farm in Danapur, Balkhari and Ganghara Danapur and Shivpuri, while the people of Hetanpur are in Daudpur and Purani Panapur Tola residents are staying behind BS College. The Dalit Tola of Purani Panapur was first settled in the block office, after which they were given a place in Maner’s Mahinama, but people were not ready to go there because it is on the banks of the Ganga. At present, they are somehow living in different places. None of them has received possession certificate so far.
Randhir Kumar Singh, a victim of Nakta Diara erosion, said that his father owned 60 bighas of land earlier. “We also had bulls, buffaloes and cows. There was no dearth of milk and curd, but we were left without food when our land and house were washed away. We had to make arrangements to shift our animals. We lived on government land in Rajiv Nagar for a few days, but were removed from there as well. I somehow managed to buy some land in Rajiv Nagar by saving money through wages and by building a hut, the whole family is living there,” said Singh, who works as a construction labourer now.
“We five brothers and my uncle’s four sons are all forced to live a nomadic life by working wherever we can. My father and uncle died due to sorrow. The government did not help us in any way. Our children also studied in government schools till classes four and five. When they turned 18, they also became labourers to run the house,” he detailed.
Doban Rai from Purani Panapur points to the need for special arrangements from the government side.
“We bear the pain of flood and erosion every year. Some people have settled in other places in the Diara itself by building huts, while others have gone to the Danapur area and are living in huts on the banks of the government canal. We face problems in accessing food and vegetables. It becomes difficult to live,” he attested.
Ram Kumar, a resident of Diara and a boatman for 25 years, seemed to have got used to the flux. “There are a lot of problems for a few days following the floods. But then, slowly life somehow comes back on track.”
(Amarjeet Sharma is a Bihar-based freelance journalist and a member of 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters)
