Villagers on the eroding bank of the Ganga in Manikchak on Monday. (Surajit Roy)

Manikchak, June 30: A rising Ganga has gobbled up more than 500sqm of land in Malda’s Manikchak in the past 24 hours, while the central agency engaged for taking anti-erosion measures struggles to finish its job.

The block development officer of Manikchak, Sandip Nag, said the erosion started at Domhat, about 45km from Malda town. “An alert has been sounded in four villages —Chhakkutola, Bhubantola, Chamartola and Bechutola,” he added.

More than 500 families live in these four villages.

The Farakka Barrage authorities, who have taken over anti-erosion work from the Bengal irrigation department, are currently engaged in building an embankment on a 2.5km stretch on the Ganga’s bank in Manikchak.

“They should have built the embankment along 5km,” said Somen Mitra, an executive engineer of the state irrigation department.

The general manager of the Farakka Barrage authorities, Naresh Kumar, put the blame on paucity of infrastructure.

“We have no dearth of funds, but we do not have the infrastructure, especially expert manpower, to take up work on a 5km area,” Kumar said.

Mitra claimed that his department had cautioned the district administration and the barrage authorities about the Ganga’s threat at a meeting held in the district magistrate’s office on June 14. Kumar was present in the meeting, along with senior district officials, said Mitra.

The general manager, however, said there was no need to panic right now as the level of the Ganga had not yet crossed the extreme danger level.

“Engineers have been sent to the site to stop the erosion,” he said.