By IANS
Patna : Floods have brought development projects in Bihar to a grinding halt, officials said Thursday.
Floodwaters have inundated 19 of the state’s 38 districts and thousands have been rendered homeless. Extensive damage has been caused to infrastructure, including roads, bridges and pipelines.
“Whatever little infrastructure was there in the state has been either destroyed or badly damaged in the floods,” a senior government official said.
Rebuilding infrastructure will be a tough task for the 21-month-old Nitish Kumar government.
So far, almost 120 people have died due to the floods and 12 million residents of 6,000 villages have been affected.
About 4,481 schools have been damaged in the floods. Official sources said 60 primary and middle schools had been damaged or washed away while 1,960 schools have suffered extensive damage and 2,000 minor damage.
In the East Champaran district, nearly 1,000 schools have been damaged, followed by 480 in Muzaffarpur, 400 in Sitamarhi and 300 in Darbhanga.
Thousands of farmers have been hit hard by floods as their standing crops have either been washed away or damaged. Overall, crops worth Rs.33 million have been destroyed. The state government has demanded Rs.1 billion from the centre as agricultural subsidy. The government has already announced compensation to the farmers.
At least 75,000 houses have been damaged, forcing thousand of families to either live under the open sky or on embankments, roads and bridges.
Officials said floods have damaged 128 embankments in several districts. The old bunds and canal systems were also damaged.
Similarly, roads, including national highways, were badly damaged in the floods. According to official estimates, 480 km of highway and about 1,100 km of rural roads were the worst hit.
“Preliminary assessment suggests that road communication was affected at several places with most roads in flood-affected districts under three to four feet of water,” officials said.
Official sources said the centre has asked Bihar to furnish a list of requirements for relief operation, including food grains, motorboats and kerosene.
According to a recent report, Bihar is the most under-developed state in India, though this dubious distinction has also been given to Orissa in other reports.