Riverine Memories
(2021 - Ongoing)
River bank erosion along the Ganges in Malda and Murshidabad district, India is a long issue that people are dealing with for decades. But in recent years many villages have seen a massive increase in erosion. Villages like China Bazar, Birnagar, and Lalupur are a few of those areas. Hundreds of people have lost their homes overnight and have taken refuge in open places or someone else's house or government schools. Many people, whose houses were close to the riverbank, have started to demolish their houses willingly so that they can recover whatever is possible before the river engulfs everything down. The area is observing a higher rate of migration. Obstruction of the natural flow of the river Ganga dates back to the inau- guration of Farakka Barrage which was commissioned by the Indian government in 1975, is one of the root causes of this. natural disaster. Experts suggest the Farakka barrage, blocks the path of the sediment which leads to a rise in the river bed level and forces the river to change its path. Now changing patterns in weather because of climate change are making the situation more severe.