Ramblings in the Darjeeling Terai: The Death of a River

 (This  was written last year in July)

 

The monsoon has set in over the past week. It has rained off and on this week and when we leave home the clouds are heavy, threatening to rain at any time.

Our first destination today is the Chanta River. According to information available on the internet, it originates in the Mahananda sanctuary, but a Google Earth search suggests that it can be traced up to the Dahukuria area somewhere in the Dagapur region. We turn off from the main road to Shiv Mandir to a smallish road. Initially the road is crowded, small houses and a few apartment buildings. Slowly it becomes a little less crowded and the Chamta River can be seen flowing beside the road. The river is small but there is a good flow. The recent rains have helped to fill the river right up to its banks. A little more rain and it might overflow.

Houses have spring up here and there and the river winds around and behind them and there are swampy areas which are more water than vegetation. It is clear, however that in the months and years to come, those areas will be filled up and new houses, businesses and schools will be developed, and the river will begin to resemble a drain. This fate has already overtaken it where it crosses the Asian Highway just beside the City Center, and enters the city of Siliguri, previous to joining the Mahananda.

We follow the river to Korebasti in the Patharghata area where a fancy looking resort has come up. Here we find one of the sources of the Chamta. It starts as a series of puddles in an agricultural field which is at least ten feet below the road. Beyond this field the land has already been divided into plots. Homes will come up very soon, I am sure.

We meet Mahavir Oraon of Korebasti. He owns the fields where this part of the Chamta river originates. The puddles that we have noticed, merge together to form a stream which flows past the resort and joins the main river somewhere behind the resort. This area is not accessible. The resort has blocked all access.

 

One origin of the Chamta and Mahavir Oraon

Coming back to Mahavir Oraon. Over the past twenty years, his family has been selling the earth from these fields to middlemen who have used to fill the swampy parts which can then be sold as homesteads. The principal buyer, he says, is Suren Barman, the father of the local MLA and the most influential person in the community. Oraon complains that Burman has used the earth to block the course of the Chamta so that the water which used to flow into it, now collects in Oraon’s fields. One year on, the self-same MLA is complaining about the sandmining in the river. I hope it means that he has had a change of heart. However, when we investigate, we find that Oraon’s fields are full of debris exactly like those brought down by mountain streams. There was definitely a flow here somewhere. The matter becomes apparent soon.

Origin of the River 

We go to investigate further and about 250 meters away we find a swampy area from which a stream is flowing. And indeed, it has been confined to cemented banks and has been blocked by a long high wall which encloses a lot of land. We are unable to discern the use of this piece of land. We follow the flow upstream and find that there is a swamp here which is being slowly encroached upon, by filling it with earth. Probably this is the use that Oraon’s earth has been put to, and this has been divided into plots in which even more houses will be built. At a distance we can see the forest separated from us by some more houses and a road. The entire plot is strewn with pebbles and other debris from the floods of the past.

The River confined 

All this gives us an insight about the birth of another river: the Chamta. Perhaps only a few decades ago all this land was forested. Small springs came up as the trees fostered subsoil water. In some places these springs untied to form a small stream that expanded and contracted with the seasons. In other area they created swamps which finally drained into these streams. And all these streams in turn gave rise to a bigger flow that was the Chamta River. Today with the disappearance of all the forested lands which are not specifically protected (and many of which are theoretically protected), the land sharks are filling up swamps and streams and the subsoil water, too, is retreating as pumps suck up water for household and agricultural needs. The Chamta still flows, and is perennial still, at least when it reaches near Siliguri. But this will not persist long if the construction boom that we saw continues. It will then become seasonal and finally, like many other rivers that have disappeared will one day stop flowing.

The Death of a River.