The Malda district administration, along with the Farakka Barrage Project Authority (FBPA), has taken an initiative to address the issue of erosion that has been plaguing certain areas of the district.

On Monday, a joint team of the administration headed by Nitin Singhania, the district magistrate and Ambarish Nayek, the general manager of the FBPA, inspected the Birnagar-I panchayat area under Kaliachak-III block where erosion by the Ganga has been reported in recent times.

The FBPA is responsible for checking erosion in some areas of Kaliachak-III block which are on the left bank of the Ganga. Questions were raised time and again about the role of FBPA in addressing erosion, which has left hundreds of people homeless in the district.

In Birnagar-I, two schools, one primary and one higher secondary, are in endangered conditions and there is a demand that those should be shifted to safer places.

Singhania, along with his team, held a meeting with teachers of both schools to find a solution. “The inspection had a positive outcome. FBPA has agreed to commence palliative work in the erosion hit areas within next few days,” he said.

Singhania also said: “FBPA will spend Rs 2.5 crore for the purpose. They have also assured to take up a major anti-erosion work with a budget of 40 crores once the water level in Ganga recedes. The work will be made along a one-and-half kilometre long stretch along the bank,” he said.

According to him, this work will start in December this year and will complete in three months’ time.

He also added that an alternative land has been spotted for shifting Birnagar High School and the attached primary school.

“The land belongs to FBPA. Both the schools will be shifted after the land is handed over to the state land and land reforms department. We would seek an approval of the state in this regard,” the DM added.

Sources in the administration said the panchayat office also requires to be shifted.

“A land at Gurudastola village has been primarily marked where the new panchayat office would be set up,” said a source.

Meanwhile, the state irrigation department has started palliative work in the erosion-hit Pardeoapur-Sovapur gram panchayat area of Kaliachak-III block. In the past few days, around 50 families have already shifted to safer places as the Ganga is inching closer to their plots while steadily gobbling land.

“The work is going on war-footing. Erosion has reduced to some extent in the area. We hope to control it in due course,” said Biplabkanti Roy, an executive engineer of the department.