The Times of India            13.11.2013 

Water resources department takes over zamindari bunds for maintenance

PATNA: Altogether 1,163 zamindari bunds constructed before Independence have been taken over by the water resources department (WRD) for maintenance. Earlier, the revenue department used to maintain them through district collectors.

WRD minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, on Tuesday, said a network of 685 zamindar bunds have been prepared for their maintenance in the first phase of takeover. These bunds were constructed by the local landlords to protect the villages from floods. They were technically not sound. The state government will develop them and raise their height by one metre above the highest flood level in the respective areas, the minister said.

He hoped the Durgawati dam which has not been completed in the last 40 years would be ready in the next one and a half year.

The participatory irrigation management in maintenance of canal network is being revived and now farmers committees would maintain the canal networks. So far, 53 farmers committees have been given management and maintenance of the canal network and 28 more such committees would be constituted to look after the distributaries and sub-distributaries networks.

The minister claimed the irrigation coverage during kharif season increased and a record 1.61 lakh hectares of land got assured irrigation through canal network against 1.39 lakh hectares area earlier.

Standard operating procedure is being adopted by the WRD to prepare advance measures to prevent damage due to floods. Flood protection measures for the next year would be completed by May 15. Engineers, through satellite imagery, can now know about floods threat at least 72 hours in advance. Flood forecasting model is also being developed in the WRD, he said.