On February 5, Leader of the Opposition and Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) working president, Tejashwi Yadav, lashed out at the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in Bihar and cornered Chief Minister Nitish Kumar by raising questions around poverty, women’s safety, law and order, and livelihoods issues in the state legislative assembly.
The RJD leader said, “Compared to other states, Bihar is the poorest. It has the highest unemployment. It is a laggard in education. It is a laggard in health... Per capita income is the lowest. Farmers are feeling cheated.”
Bihar is undoubtedly India’s poorest state with 33.76 per cent of its population experiencing multidimensional poverty. Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) identifies poverty beyond income by assessing simultaneous deprivations in health, education, and standard of living. It uses 10 indicators across three key dimensions to determine if an individual is poor. Bihar tops the list in India (see graph: India: Headcount ration).
A Flood Of Losses
Various factors contribute to multidimensional poverty in the state, but recurring floods play a key role in keeping a large chunk of the population trapped in the vicious circle of losses and recovery.
This has been documented and demonstrated in a one-of-its-kind comprehensive flood loss assessment by Megh Pyne Abhiyan (MPA), a public charitable trust that works on issues of water distress in East India. The report titled, Household-level Flood Loss Assessment Report in North Bihar - Post 2024 Floods, was released in December 2025 and supported by Tata Trusts.
The comprehensive assessment by MPA has calculated a total economic loss of Rs 126.3 crore across the surveyed 2,290 households in seven districts of north Bihar, highlighting a massive financial burden at the micro-level. These seven districts include Paschim Champaran, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Saharsa, Supaul, and Kishanganj. These 2,290 households were affected by phase 2 floods, between September 26 and September 29 in 2024.
As per the report, the average loss per flood-affected household was Rs 5.51 lakh, though the median loss of Rs 2.11 lakh provides a more representative figure for the majority of families. Losses were assessed by MPA’s survey team across 20 categories and aggregated into seven broad themes—housing, personal and household assets, WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene), land, livestock, and agriculture.
"For the first time in Bihar, flood losses have been assessed from the ground up, at the level where floods are actually lived, inside households rather than in aggregated government registers," Eklavya Prasad, Managing Trustee of Megh Pyne Abhiyan, told Kashmir Times. "Till now, flood impacts have been reduced to district-level numbers that flatten inequalities and erase everyday, lived losses. This household-level flood loss assessment, together with community-level deliberations, documents not only damage to houses and crops, but also losses of personal and household assets, land, livestock, access to water and sanitation, agriculture-based livelihoods, health, education, and dignity," he said.
Land damage emerged as the largest contributor, accounting for 47.2 per cent (Rs 55.4 crore) of total losses, followed by estimated house repair at 36.2 per cent (Rs 42 crore). Losses to WASH facilities (2.2 per cent, Rs 2.8 crore) were nearly equivalent to livestock losses (2.4 per cent, Rs 3 crore), while agriculture and livestock together made up 10 per cent of the total.
These household-level losses are for just one flood event (phase 2 floods in 2024), whereas villages in north Bihar face recurring flash floods, many of which go unreported and unaccounted for. If losses for all the flood events in a year are collected and calculated, the amount would be massive and would explain why people living in north Bihar are one of the poorest citizens in the country. These families face multiple flood events every year, which cause recurring losses, and marginalised and vulnerable communities can almost never recover from them.
For instance, an earlier study by MPA in 2016, titled ‘Post Disaster Recovery: Assessment of Needs in Moderate Flood Conditions’, found that small, hilly rivers, along the India-Nepal border, report flash floods up to 50-60 times in a year, causing extensive damage to property and crops destruction. Chegraha River regularly floods Harkatwa village in Rupwaliya panchayat of Pashchim Champaran in north Bihar between January and October. Villagers of Harkatwa have reported 60 events of flash floods in one year!
India’s Most Flood-Prone State
With 73 per cent of its geographical area identified as flood-prone, Bihar is India’s most flood-prone state and accounts for around 17.2 per cent of the total flood-prone area of the country. This is noted in the Flood Hazard Atlas—Bihar, prepared by National Remote Sensing Centre, in association with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Disaster Management Department of Bihar government.
About 76 per cent of the population in north Bihar lives under the recurring threat of floods. The plains of north Bihar, adjoining Nepal, are drained by a number of rivers that have their catchments in the Himalayas of Nepal – including the Kosi, Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Bagmati, Kamla Balan, Mahananda and the Adhwara group of rivers (see map: River basin map of north Bihar). The region of north Bihar covers 21 of the total 38 districts in the state, and is separated from south Bihar by the river Ganges.
Almost every year floods severely damage property, both movable and immovable, destroy standing crops and food grains, and badly dent the infrastructure in Bihar. Floods bring untold miseries to villagers as they have to leave their damaged houses and spend a long time in relief camps, embankments or in temporary shelters. Health and education are affected. People are pushed to migrate in search of livelihoods. The government (both central and state) disburses several crores of money for relief and rehabilitation, but the cycle of recovery and ruin continues.
How Floods Exacerbate Poverty
Flood losses act as a catalyst for long-term impoverishment by stripping households of their productive capacities and forcing them into debt cycles.
According to the recent flood loss assessment report by MPA, to survive the immediate aftermath, 67 per cent of households were compelled to borrow money from local moneylenders, often at high interest rates. Additionally, 35 per cent mortgaged jewellery and 15 per cent sold or mortgaged livestock to meet urgent needs.
These actions provide temporary survival but erode the assets needed for future income, locking families into long-term cycles of dependency and poverty.
There is also a vulnerability paradox in north Bihar. While ‘asset-rich’ households report higher absolute monetary losses, smaller losses are far more devastating for marginalised families with limited resources. For instance, 36 per cent of Scheduled Tribe (ST) households were forced to mortgage land and 56 per cent mortgaged livestock just to survive, compared to wealthier groups who have better access to social networks and credit, found the MPA study.
There is also a lack of financial safety nets. Nearly 80 per cent of households had no knowledge of or access to flood insurance, meaning they must bear the full cost of reconstruction themselves. Without formal compensation, which was reportedly absent or inconsistent in many districts, families rely on remittances or high-interest informal loans.
Recurring floods also lead to forced migration, especially of male youth. Approximately 45 per cent of respondents reported post-flood migration as a survival strategy. While remittances are a vital lifeline for 68 per cent of households, this reliance underscores the absence of viable local livelihood options and the failure of current systems to build resilience.
Floods lead to disruption of education as schools remained closed for one to two months in many areas, with students from the poorest households and girls being most affected. This disruption to human capital development further limits the chances for upward socio-economic mobility.
Roadmap To Build Flood Resilience
The MPA report, Household-level Flood Loss Assessment Report in North Bihar - Post 2024 Floods, offers a comprehensive, multi-sectoral framework for transforming Bihar’s flood management from a reactive, relief-centric model into a proactive, community-centered system. It emphasises that solutions must be typology-sensitive, meaning they are tailored to the specific nature of the flood (such as breach-induced, flash flood, or waterlogging) rather than being one-size-fits-all.
"By capturing how flood typologies, location, and social identity shape both loss and recovery, the assessment replaces assumptions with lived realities. Such granular evidence is critical to move flood governance away from one-size-fits-all responses toward equitable compensation, context-sensitive preparedness, and long-term planning, ensuring that policy reduces vulnerability rather than reproducing it," said Prasad.
There is a need to focus on four categories of works — Preparedness (pre-flood actions), Response (actions during floods), Recovery (medium-term restoration), and Resilience (long-term transformation).
Under preparedness, the goal is to build local capacity and infrastructure before the flood arrives. This includes establishment of panchayat-level Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs) and training local volunteer cadres to interpret and relay hydro-meteorological warnings in local dialects.
There is a need to construct permanent, elevated multipurpose shelters for people and dedicated cattle shelters equipped with fodder, water, and veterinary kits. Boats, medical kits, and standardised modular relief supplies should be pre-positioned at the community level.
During the floods, the focus should be on rapid, inclusive, and technologically-informed interventions. There is a need to deploy motorboats suited to specific flood typologies and pre-map evacuation routes using GIS and AI-powered tools. Last-mile delivery of relief kits should be ensured through grassroots networks like self-help groups (SHGs) to reach stranded households.
Deployment of mobile health clinics (boat ambulances) and providing gender-sensitive sanitation facilities, including menstrual hygiene products, is crucial. There is also a need to provide zero-energy household water filters and portable purification units to prevent waterborne disease outbreaks during floods.
To ensure recovery, the MPA report advocates ‘Building Back Better’ to ensure families do not fall back into poverty. For this, owner-driven reconstruction should be prioritised. There is a need to move away from temporary huts to permanent, flood-resilient housing by providing families with choices in design and materials, supported by resilience vouchers. Resilience vouchers are an innovative financial tool proposed in the report's programmatic blueprint to support the recovery and long-term reconstruction of flood-affected households.
Crop loss compensation needs to be expedited and rapid recovery support should be provided through seed replacement banks, and fodder banks. GIS-linked damage registries and blockchain-enabled tracking should be used to ensure compensation reaches the most vulnerable without exclusion or corruption.
For long-term transformation, the MPA report has suggested introduction of community-led micro-insurance and index-based crop insurance with mobile verification for rapid payouts. It has also recommended relocating or retrofitting schools and health centers currently in high-risk zones and using climate-resilient materials for constructing village roads to maintain access during floods.
There is a need to institutionalise micro-drainage plans and catchment restoration to manage water flow and reduce long-term waterlogging. For those in extremely hazardous areas like families living between river embankments, suitable alternative land for cluster-based relocation should be identified.
As a way forward, the assessment report has recommended a formal partnership between government, community-based organisations, and innovators to come up with climate-resilient solutions, such as flood-resilient Phaydemand Shauchalaya (ecosan toilet) in north Bihar.
In the face of climate change, which is leading to extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall and flash floods, there is an urgent need for mainstreaming climate resilience. Various scientific reports point towards high climate vulnerability in Bihar. In 2021, the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a New Delhi-based think-tank, ranked Bihar as the 5th most vulnerable state in its report that mapped India’s climate vulnerability.
Further, 14 out of 50 districts most vulnerable to climate change in India, are in Bihar, according to a 2019-2020 study, Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Adaptation Planning in India Using a Common Framework.
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