Satish Aditya
Motihari : Four -feet deep water is still flowing at Banjariya Block Office and FCI Godown, hardly 2 km away in north from Motihari , headquarters of East Champaran district in North Bihar, for the last 10 days, as the district was ravaged by flood twice in last one fortnight. The block office has been running temporarily from Motihari Town.
Forty villages under 13 panchayats under Banjariya block located in low lying areas on the eastern side of NH- 28A bear the brunt of the deluge every year with Burhi Gandak and three hilly rivers inundating these villages keeping about 40,000 villagers trapped for 20 to 25 days.
Although the water of river Bagmati, Lalbakeya, and Burhi Gandak started receding on July 27, 2019, the situation in
40 villages under Banjariya block continues to be grim. The water of Burhi Gandak is flowing three to four feet deep under five panchayat while in three/ four panchayats it is flowing two- and-a-half-feet deep. The situation is almost the same in some part of Dhaka, Patahi, Chiraiya, and Sugauli blocks.
On July 28, 2019, PHED Minister Vinod Narayan Jha, Minister Incharge, East Champaran district, cancelled his flood review meeting here due to some unavoidable reason. East Champaran DM Raman Kumar said that 1.38 lakh families of 94
panchayats under 11 blocks have been affected by the flood and more than 99 community kitchens were running in marooned villages where cooked food were supplied to those affected by the flood. The GR of Rs 6,000 each had been was transferred into the bank accounts of 56,000 flood affected families till date.
Senior CPM leader and former MLA from Sugauli Ramashray Singh claimed that only two country boats had been provided by the district administration for communication in this block and patient were being taken to Motihari on cots. Hundreds
of flood victims have taken shelter on NH28 A and railway tracks and no readymade food was being supplied to then by administration.
Mujibur Rahaman of Siswaniya said that he had come to Motihari to purchase medicine wading through chest deep water from his village as there is no boat there. The residents of Jatawa, Janerawa, Rohinia, and other villages have taken shelter on taking shelter on rooftop of pucca buildings.