Bihar: Experts, Scholars Doubt Kosi-Mechi River Linking Project Claim to Solve Flood Issue

Patna: More than a fortnight after the Union budget allocation of funding for flood control measures and irrigation, including the ambitious Kosi-Mechi river linking project in Bihar, river and flood experts, researchers and activists have questioned the project’s feasibility and refuted the state government’s claims that it will address the flood problem and provide irrigation to farmers during
kharif season.

Last month, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while announcing allocation of Rs 11,500 crore for flood control measures and irrigation projects across states, including the Kosi-Mechi river linking project, stated that the Central government was committed to help Bihar which had been facing the brunt of floods.

Similarly, Bihar energy minister Bijendar Yadav, who is from the Kosi region, repeatedly claimed during the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign that there would be an end of the Kosi flood problem soon by linking the river to Mechi river, a tributary of Mahananda. He also tried told local people that Kosi’s surplus water would be discharged into Mechi for a permanent solution of the recurrent floods.

Former Bihar water resources minister and ruling Janata Dal-United working president Sanjay Kumar Jha has time and again said that Kosi-Mechi river linking project was a “must” to address the flood and irrigation problmes in Kosi and Seemanchal region.

The Kosi-Mechi river linking is the second river linking project in the country after the Ken-Betwa scheme in Madhya Pradesh, which got  green clearance from the Central government in 2019.

Bihar, which shares its northern border with neighbouring Nepal, has been witnessing floods during monsoon, as the Himalayan rivers, including Kosi, transborder river and Mahanananda (both orginate in the Himalayas) run down south. Heavy rainfall in the catchment areas result in a rise in the water level and overflowing that inundates a large part of land in nearly a dozen districts. The annual floods affect millions in the state, damage properties, crops and many lives are lost, too.

The Kosi-Mechi river linking project aims to connect the Kosi river, known as the ‘sorrow’ of Bihar, to divert its surplus water to Mechi, a tributary of Mahananda river.

A new 76.2 km-long canal is proposed to be constructed to link Kosi to Mechi. The Kosi-Mechi link canal will originate from the Hanuman Nagar Barrage across Kosi river near the border of Nepal.

A joint team of activists Mahendra Yadav, who works with flood victims in the Kosi region along with Rahul Yaduka, an IIT engineer-turned-researcher on Kosi, recently visited a few places connected to this proposed project. They met local people and studied the detailed project report (DPR) prepared by the National Water Development Agency to find out the facts and ground reality of the government’s claims.

“In the DPR, the Kosi-Mechi Intrastate Link Project is in the check-list category and it is mentioned clearly that it is an irrigation project, not a multipurpose project, and it is for diversion work, not storage. Going by the DPR, it is far from truth that the project will end the Kosi floods problem. The government’s claim is a big lie”, Yadav told NewsClick.

Yadav, who is founder-convenor of a local people's organisation, Kosi Nav Nirman Manch, said as per the DPR, at present 15,000 cusec water from the Kosi river is diverted to the Eastern Kosi Main Canal and after remodelling the same canal under the project, 20,247 cusecs will be diverted. This means that after completion of the project, only 5,247 cusecs will be diverted to the canal from Kosi,” he said.

He added that the Eastern Kosi Main Canal Irrigation Project, which was a failed project, would be modified to bring forth this new project. “It is not going to solve flood problems for thousands living within Kosi embankments. Will diversion of this small volume of water make any difference to Kosi floods?” he said.

Yaduka said the DPR of the Kosi-Mechi river linking project available in the public domain hardly vindicated claim of the government. “If we take official data of water in Kosi in 2024, it was recorded 3.96 lakh cusecs on July 7 and 3 lakh cusecs on July 10. If this much- hyped project will extract 5,247 cusecs from Kosi into the canal, how it will make a difference to Kosi floods”,” he, too, said.

The researcher said the project’s executive summary clearly mentioned that there was possibility of partial and accidental flood control by this project. ”The flood control claim is only a false propaganda and an attempt to mislead people, who
have been struggling to get rid of floods problems for years”, he sadded.

Yadav and Yaduka also expressed doubts over the government’s claim to provide irrigation to 2.14 lakh hectares in four Seemanchal  districts – Araria, Kishanganj, Purnea and Katihar.

Dinesh Kumar Mishra, a flood and river expert, told Newsclick that any project to link larger flow river with low or less flow river, like Kosi-Mechi river linking project, is not viable. “I am not sure how Kosi-Mechi river linking will end the floods in Kosi. It seems the project is based on some assumptions. Who will be accountable if the project does not work, as claimed by the government, because huge public money is going to be spent on it”, he said.

Satyanarayan Madan, a member of Working Group On Ecological Democracy in Bihar, also said the project would not solve the flood issue. “Opposition to the project has started on the basis of it. A team comprising experts, activists and journalists will visit the location of the Kosi-Mechi river linking project to assess the situation. after that we will compile a report on it,” he said.