Kosi breach due to Bihar government's apathy: PAG

Patna, Jan 15 (PTI) The Principal Accountant General (PAG) of Bihar has indicted the state government for the breach in river Kosi embankment in 2008 that rendered lakhs of people homeless and claimed several lives.

"Lack of sincere approach in protection work by Bihar's Water Resources Department (WRD) led to the breach in the eastern afflux bund on Kosi at Kusaha in Nepal in 2008," the PAG said in its report, official sources said today.

The WRD did not accept the proposals of head works division and the Eastern Kosi Embankment division of Birpur for protection works at vulnerable sites
of the bund that includes the breached point before the 2008 floods, the report of the PAG, an office under the Comptroller and Auditor General,
said.

Instead, the department had curtailed the work of construction of 11 studs to just 5 between 12.8 km and 13.