COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

'The accident was not unexpected'

K P Bhattacharya in Calcutta

The numbness has passed. And the villagers of Karimpur are waking up painfully to last Tuesday's tragedy which claimed 66 lives when a bus full of picnickers fell into the Padma river in Bengal's Murshidabad district.

And with the agony comes anger. An overpowering one at the irreparable loss they have suffered -- 62 of the dead, 62 teenagers, belonged to the village -- making them point an accusing finger at the "irresponsible government" for the eroded road at the site.

"The accident was not unexpected. If you visit the place where the bus fell into the river, you will see how eroded the road is," says an aggrieved villager, "That's precisely why the driver could not steer the bus out of danger."

That riverbank erosion has reduced most roads in the Murshidabad, Malda and Nadia districts on the Indo-Bangladesh border to a dangerous state is a matter of fact. But neither the central nor the state government has taken any step to address the problem.

The Padma has already gulped hundreds of kilometres of its banks in the three districts. In Jalangi where the accident took place, the river has eaten into the land, leaving the road nothing but a thin line of tar.

"It was not because the driver didn't see the U-turn. Nor was he drunk as the authorities claim," locals say, "But he couldn't do anything on that narrow space."

Land erosion in these districts is not a recent problem. In fact, there had been a number of expert committees working to find a solution to it since the mid-1970s. Reams of reports have been submitted to successive governments -- only to take up shelf-space.

"The right bank of the Farakka dam (the longest one on the river) downstream is in a precarious condition. The river has already gulped down many villages," says the Geological Survey of India's former director Sunil Sen Sharma who carried out a detailed study on the phenomenon, "The interfluve (space between two rivers) between the Padma and Vagirathi has reduced to below 0.8 kilometre in Jalangi and adjacent villages. This itself says how bad the road conditions in the area is."

Sharma, who spent four years on the project, said the primary reason for the disastrous erosion is the unscientific engineering of the Farakka dam. The water flow in it is much more than what its 109 gates can handle.

Another cause for Padma's madness, says Geographical Society of India president M R Sunit Munshi, is the spur which has been built on its banks in the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh (the river meanders across the border).

"Failing to find ways in Rajshah, the river is now cutting into Indian districts," he says.

Unfortunately, the authorities have not woken up to the threat -- besides taking some ad hoc measures, nothing tangible has come from them. The state authorities place the blame squarely on the central government.

"Despite several requests, they have not provided any fund to protect the river banks," complains Bengal Irrigation Secretary Amal Kanti Sarkar, "Nearly Rs 9 billion is required for our project. In the first phase we needed Rs 3 billion. But we had to make do with just Rs 240 million."

Irrigation Minister Debabrata Bondopadhyay, who hails from the Murshidabad district, had led a number of all party delegations to the Union irrigation ministry. But to no avail.

Meanwhile, as the state authorities busily pass the buck to the Centre, the villagers are planning to boycott the election to press their demand for a permanent solution. Geological experts agree with them -- what Padma needs is a concrete solution, not temporary measures like spur construction.

"No piecemeal effort will solve the problem," they say, "Solid steps need to be taken immediately. If not..."

Tell us what you think of this report