Bihar flood situation worsens

  • 03/08/2009

  • Asian Age (New Delhi)

ANAND S.T. DAS PATNA The flood situation in north Bihar worsened on Sunday with the Bagmati's marauding waters entering fresh areas and the NH-77, connecting Sitamarhi and Muzaffarpur, getting inundated. The number of affected people rose to 1.5 lakh since Saturday's embankment breach. As chief minister Nitish Kumar made an aerial survey of the flooded areas of Sitamarhi district amid reports of water levels in other rivers in north Bihar touching the danger marks, Bihar's politics became hot after the Opposition blaming the government for the Bagmati's embankment breach at Tajpur village in Sitamarhi. Mr Kumar, who held talks with senior officials at Runnisaidpur during his aerial survey, said action would be considered against negligent officials for the embankment breach after the highlevel bureaucrats' probe team's report came. But the Congress and the LJP alleged massive corruption in the embankment construction and demanded a CBI probe and a minister's resignation respectively. "The Bagmati embankment was built just last year with Rs 800 crores, but the poor work leading to the breach is proof that the money was misused. This is the result of the Nitish Kumar government's ways of filling the ruling parties' coffers with funding from corrupt contractors," said Bihar Congress president Anil Sharma. He demanded a CBI probe. The LJP demanded water resources minister Bijendra Yadav's resignation. Meanwhile, two contingents of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)