Patna, Sept. 20: Water management experts today questioned why a project should take 40 years to be completed amid a political storm over the breach in the Bhagalpur canal that was to have been inaugurated today.

Water and river expert Dinesh Mishra, who is also an IIT-trained engineer, pointed out that three to four years should have been enough to complete the canal project, but taking 40 years was an 'in-the-eye' example of how the entire irrigation mal-planning worked to waste public money.

'Time is wasted in approval of a project - then technical sanction, planning sanction, finance estimates and sanction, work order. Then comes litigation by various sections of the society, including those who are impacted by land acquisition and construction work. By the time project work takes off, voices to modernise it rise and the project lingers again. In between governments change, priorities change,' Dinesh said.

Dinesh, who has worked extensively in north Bihar, especially on the river Kosi, said though lift irrigation techniques were suitable for plateau and hilly regions, the Kahalgaon canal project was unsuitable for Bhagalpur and was a waste of public money as ill-informed engineers and politicians do not consider any project holistically.

'Ganga or any river meanders in its last stretches in the plains and keeps shifting course. You make pump-houses at one place and the river may shift to another place in a couple of years. You then dig a channel to bring water to the pump-house, but it becomes filled by silt during the monsoon and flood season. The vicious cycle continues and people accrue very little benefit.'

The main canal is over 47km long of which 16.77km is in Bihar and 30.55km in Jharkhand. In addition there are branch canals and eight water distributing channels to irrigate land in Bhagalpur (Bihar) and Godda (Jharkhand) districts. The canal collapse has triggered a political uproar with RJD chief Lalu Prasad launching a scathing attack on the government.

'When floods hit Bihar, Lalan Singh said that rats made holes in the embankments which caused them to breach. This time it seems that the ghariyal (alligator) has made the hole in the canal due to which it collapsed. Strict action should be taken against the people responsible for this as public money has been wasted,' Lalu said at his 10 Circular Road residence in Patna.

Lalu further said that chief minister Nitish Kumar 'lacked the guts' to take action against water resources minister Lalan Singh and demanded a high level inquiry.

The RJD's Kahalgaon unit staged a daylong dharna today at the block headquarters to protest against the failure of the state government in operationalising the project.