The Mithila region, located in the northern part of Bihar (India) and parts of southeastern Nepal, is blessed with an abundance of water resources. Shaped by the fertile Gangetic plains and nourished by the Himalayan Rivers, Mithila is one of the richest hydrological zones in the Indian subcontinent. Despite challenges, the region’s water wealth holds the potential for sustainable development, agricultural prosperity, and cultural enrichment, provided people understand the challenges and work cohesively to overcome water depletion, which has grown substantially over the last couple of decades.
Its low-lying plains and proximity to the Himalayan foothills characterize Mithila’s geography. This makes it a natural reservoir for numerous rivers, ponds, and groundwater reserves. Major rivers such as the Kosi, Bagmati, Kamla, Gandak, and Balan flow through Mithila, bringing with them vast quantities of water from the Himalayan glaciers. These rivers not only provide irrigation but also recharge groundwater and fill ponds and lakes that dot the landscape.
Water Depletion in Mithila: A Growing Concern...
Mithila’s traditional water management systems, especially the Ahar-Pyne network, once sustained irrigation and recharged groundwater. Today, many of these systems are either encroached upon, silted up, or abandoned due to urbanization and a lack of awareness.
Ponds (locally known as pokhairs) that once stored rainwater and supported local ecosystems are disappearing. The entire Mithila region is full of these pokhars, and across cities and villages, people are now facing an existential crisis. The business of Land (property Dealers' lobby), with the support of political, administrative, and criminal elements, can fill this important part of natural water management that has existed for ages. These ponds are often filled in for the construction of housing/malls/ and other business purposes.
We must know that these ponds played a crucial role for Mithila in many ways
1) It works as emergency irrigation in case of a low or insufficient monsoon,
2) It keeps ground groundwater level recharged and hence has lesser dependency on the government for water needs.
3) Agro Businesses like fish farming, Gorgon nuts (popularly known as Makhana) farming have been a traditional business source of the region for locals.
Cities like Darbhanga, Madhubani, Saharsa, Samastipur, and Sitamadhi never had to face a drinking water crisis. They are now struggling to provide the same. From town to village, one can see dried-up hand pumps and people getting dependent on either government-provided tap water or bottled water bought from the market. This is disheartening to see how a rich water resource region has gotten into a mess in just 2-3 decades. The most unfortunate part is that local Maithils still do not take it as the biggest issue of the coming decades and for generations.
Water Crisis in Madhubani, Mithila: A Silent Thirst in a Fertile Land:
Although the entire Mithila region of Bihar, historically celebrated for its vibrant culture, Maithili language, and the legacy of Sita, is now grappling with an increasingly urgent issue: a severe water crisis. Among the districts in this region, Madhubani stands out as one of the worst-affected, facing critical water scarcity due to a combination of environmental neglect, poor infrastructure, and policy failures.
Madhubani heavily depends on groundwater for drinking and irrigation. However, over-extraction of water through hand pumps and bore wells has led to a sharp fall in the groundwater table. Compounding this issue is arsenic contamination, especially in blocks like Jhanjharpur and Phulparas. Long-term exposure to arsenic can lead to serious health issues, including skin lesions, cancer, and organ failure. Despite receiving a fair amount of rainfall, water is rarely conserved effectively. Traditional ponds, ahars, and pynes (ancient water management systems) have been encroached upon or neglected. Modern infrastructure projects often ignore these indigenous systems, leading to runoff and waterlogging during monsoons, but acute scarcity in summer.
While government initiatives like Jal Jeevan Mission aim to provide tap water to every household, implementation in remote areas of Madhubani has been slow and inconsistent. Corruption, lack of awareness, and weak maintenance often lead to non-functional schemes. There is also a gap between urban and rural water access, with villages frequently neglected.
One of the major drawbacks of the Jal Jeevan mission is the approach and strategy, government herself is using ground water for distribution, it installs submersible everywhere which pumps water from not rechargeable layers, once water finishes the entire plan will go for a toss, overexploitation of non-rechargeable layer will have larger implications for future.
We need civil society movements, leadership, and turning the water crisis creating new, preserving old Pokhar as a political issue to control the damage and avert the very evident forthcoming crisis, which will make the entire region thirsty and crying for water…
Hope:
We need civil society movements, leadership that creates a water crisis, creating new and preserving old Pokhar as a political issue in order to control the damage and avert the very evident forthcoming crisis, which will affect the entire region.
Though people are largely not very aware of the forthcoming problem of the region but not all is that bad as well, we have many organizations, groups, and individuals who are working on the ground day and night, fighting for the cause of preservation of existing pokhars, ground water, and better river management.
One such individual who has given his life for this cause is Sri Narayan Ji Chaudhary. His commitment to save the water heritage of Mithila started from Darbhanga, where he initiated a campaign called Talab Bachao Abhiyan. The clear motive of Narayanji’s campaign has been to raise awareness about the importance of saving ponds amongst people at large, work as a cohesive group to connect and get support from the system to save the ponds, and if need be, agitate as well for the better future of the next Maithil generations. Over the years, Choudhary led several sit-in protests (dharna), signature campaigns, poster exhibitions during popular festivals like Durga Puja and Chhath, protest marches, and organised meetings with students and party leaders to save ponds.
The growing water crisis witnessed in recent years, including as recent as in 2018 and 2019, in Darbhanga and neighbouring districts, has compelled Choudhary to widen his campaign from saving ponds to saving and reviving “water bodies” (Jalashay Bachao Abhiyan), a new initiative kicked off this year. Choudhary’s focus now is to save water bodies (jalashay), including rivers and wetlands, locally known as chaur. He got the push in this direction from Manas Bihari Verma, a retired DRDO scientist and friend of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who has actively been supporting Choudhary from the start and encouraged him to engage with people to save all water bodies, a lifeline for survival.
According to Narayan Ji Chaudhary, in the last two decades, illegal encroachers have filled ponds with waste, soil, and other material, killing the ponds. With the disappearance of ponds, their ability to harvest natural water during the monsoon will also be hit. “It is a difficult task to save a pond due to apathy of government and local administration,” said Choudhary about his fight to protect old ponds even as illegal encroachers get away easily.
Organizations like Talab Bachao Abhiyan are gaining momentum, and awareness is now increasing rapidly. We need more like Mr Chaudhary and his organization to save at least the existing water bodies that we have inherited from the past.