23 Apr, 2007
GAYA: With a large part of the Falgu bed between Panchayati Akhara and Vishnupad littered with discarded polythene bags, debris from all over the town and solid waste, water famine looms large over Gaya town having a population of nearly half a million people. Time and again, Jal Jamat activist Ravindra Pathak raised the issue of the river Falgu being converted into a municipal dump and its long term impact on the dying water supply system as well as the water table in the town. According to Jal Jamat activist Ravindra Pathak, the polythene bags, solid municipal waste and debris being indiscriminately dumped into the river bed has already reduced the permeability of the river. Falgu, the mythologically cursed river (as per the story, the river was cursed by Goddess Sita and as such remains devoid of surface water for the better part of the year) absorbs rain and flood water and stores them several metres beneath the river bed. The subsurface water of the river is pumped out and supplied to about 40 per cent of the town's nearly 40,000 municipal holdings. The other 60 per cent of the town's population draws underground water through tube wells and privately installed submersible pumps. The town's water table, as a whole, is determined by the subsurface water level of the Falgu river. What worries water activists the most is the fact that discarded polythene bags and municipal wastes are gradually occupying more and more parts of the river bed all along the township, thereby proportionately reducing the permeability of the bed and blocking the flow of rain and flood water to the subsurface reservoir of the river. For the last nearly five years, elected councillors of the municipal corporation and the district administration have been playing the blame game, thereby leaving the field wide open for builders and others to dump the debris in the river. It has also helped encroachers, who have built houses on the 'filled' part of the eastern and western flank of the river, and the process continues. Ironically, the sanitary staff of the Gaya Municipal Corporation, themselves, have been dumping waste in the Falgu bed thereby saving on fuel and also getting paid by land grabbers, says activist Lalji Prasad. On more than one occasion, the Gaya DM Jitendra Srivastava and his predecessors have said that it was the responsibility of the municipal body to prevent dumping of polythene, debris and other kinds of waste into the river bed. The outgoing mayor Asha Devi complains about lack of financial powers to the elected representatives, thereby making what she calls a 'mockery' of urban self governance. And in the meantime, Falgu is getting choked every hour.
GAYA: With a large part of the Falgu bed between Panchayati Akhara and Vishnupad littered with discarded polythene bags, debris from all over the town and solid waste, water famine looms large over Gaya town having a population of nearly half a million people. Time and again, Jal Jamat activist Ravindra Pathak raised the issue of the river Falgu being converted into a municipal dump and its long term impact on the dying water supply system as well as the water table in the town. According to Jal Jamat activist Ravindra Pathak, the polythene bags, solid municipal waste and debris being indiscriminately dumped into the river bed has already reduced the permeability of the river. Falgu, the mythologically cursed river (as per the story, the river was cursed by Goddess Sita and as such remains devoid of surface water for the better part of the year) absorbs rain and flood water and stores them several metres beneath the river bed. The subsurface water of the river is pumped out and supplied to about 40 per cent of the town's nearly 40,000 municipal holdings. The other 60 per cent of the town's population draws underground water through tube wells and privately installed submersible pumps. The town's water table, as a whole, is determined by the subsurface water level of the Falgu river. What worries water activists the most is the fact that discarded polythene bags and municipal wastes are gradually occupying more and more parts of the river bed all along the township, thereby proportionately reducing the permeability of the bed and blocking the flow of rain and flood water to the subsurface reservoir of the river. For the last nearly five years, elected councillors of the municipal corporation and the district administration have been playing the blame game, thereby leaving the field wide open for builders and others to dump the debris in the river. It has also helped encroachers, who have built houses on the 'filled' part of the eastern and western flank of the river, and the process continues. Ironically, the sanitary staff of the Gaya Municipal Corporation, themselves, have been dumping waste in the Falgu bed thereby saving on fuel and also getting paid by land grabbers, says activist Lalji Prasad. On more than one occasion, the Gaya DM Jitendra Srivastava and his predecessors have said that it was the responsibility of the municipal body to prevent dumping of polythene, debris and other kinds of waste into the river bed. The outgoing mayor Asha Devi complains about lack of financial powers to the elected representatives, thereby making what she calls a 'mockery' of urban self governance. And in the meantime, Falgu is getting choked every hour.
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