Illegal houses on Falgu riverbed. Picture by Suman

Gaya, June 13: Streets and thoroughfares are not the only ones to fall prey to encroachment. Some rivers are also in the same boat. The Falgu is one among them.

The Gaya district administration has started a process of measurement of the Falgu riverbed to identify its encroachers. It began after the visit of a six-member team of the Bihar State Pollution Control Board to Gaya on June 7.

The team headed by chairman Subhash Chandra Singh had expressed concern over the riverbed falling victim to encroachment and being used as a garbage dumping ground.

Recently, the district administration had served notice on at least 57 people of Iqbal Nagar Colony near Panchayati Akhada who are under scanner for allegedly encroaching the river. These people have erected double-storeyed houses on the riverbank. However, some people did not receive the notice because they leave elsewhere renting out their houses on the encroached area.

Moin Ansari, a resident of Iqbal Nagar, told The Telegraph that he had heard about the notice being served to the residents but said he did not get the same. He said several residents of Iqbal Nagar are paying holding tax to Gaya Municipal Corporation.

“I possess the receipt of the tax paid to the corporation. If the colony was illegally developed, the administration should have stopped it at the time of construction. In the beginning, some huts were constructed. When no one took notice of that, a few single-storeyed pucca houses came up. Now, when Iqbal Nagar is a well-developed colony, the administration is serving notice to vacate the land,” Moin said.

Gaya sadar sub-divisional officer (SDO) Paritosh Kumar confirmed that the measurement of the riverbed had started. He told The Telegraph that notice would be served to encroachers on the basis of the report of the circle officer. He said the administration would not wait for the complete report and the action to evacuate encroachers would be taken simultaneously with the measurement report.

Moreover, the water flowing underground has been polluted. This is because drains in Gaya flow into the Falgu riverbed. Besides, a number of water pumps have been installed on the riverbed that soak water.

Once the water of Falgu was as pure as mineral water, said social worker Suresh Narayan. Its water got polluted and the underground water-level depleted over the past few years, Narayan, who stays near Vishnupad temple, hardly 200m from the river bank, said. According to reports in the Gaya Gazeteer published in 1956, the breadth of Falgu was mentioned to be 900 yards. British surveyor Francis Buchanan, who had visited Gaya in December-January 1811-12, had also mentioned in his report that the breadth of Falgu riverbed was nearly 500 yards near Khiriawan (on Gaya-Bodhgaya riverside road). Here, two rivers flowing towards Gaya from Bodhgaya, Lilajan or Niranjana and Muhane meet.

Buchanan in his report had said the Falgu riverbed attains a breadth of 800 yards while flowing towards Gaya.