Bihar's silt MoU leaves 1,050 lakh cubic metres in limbo

Bihar's river desilting plan was reported on 2 November 2026. The memorandum of understanding was signed the next day, 3 November, with Nitin Gadkari and chief minister Samrat Choudhary present. What the ceremony left open is where 1,050 lakh of the announced 1,500 lakh cubic metres will go.

Silt is why Bihar signed. Gadkari said accumulated silt has cut the water-carrying capacity of the state's rivers, which is why the Kosi, Bagmati, Kamla-Balan and Gandak flood the same districts most years.

Soil is why the highway ministry signed. Officials said delays in the availability of soil push project timelines, cost toll revenue and escalate costs, and that contractors struggle to get permission to excavate, friction that later appears as a revised completion date.

So the two problems were traded. The National Highways Authority of India desilts at its own cost. Bihar pays nothing and gets its channels cleared. NHAI gets road material without a fresh borrow pit or a district excavation permit.

The 1,050 lakh cubic metres with nowhere to go

The silt will be used in at least 43 National Highway projects in Bihar, 16 of them already under construction and 27 proposed, and the volume divides the same way: 400 lakh cubic metres for the ongoing works, 1,050 lakh for the 27 future ones, subject to technical suitability and requisite approvals, so the share of the headline figure with a site to go to is about a quarter.

The ministry has not published what technical suitability means.

Until it does, 1,050 lakh cubic metres is a proposal. The programme it is meant to serve is already spending money.

Thirty-nine NHAI projects are under construction in Bihar, about 1,561 km at an estimated Rs 58,340 crore. Eleven more are proposed, about 1,982 km at an estimated Rs 1.85 lakh crore.

That pipeline needs soil on a schedule. The specification has no date.

The geography is unnamed. MoU text covers "identified rivers and water bodies" and lists none. Bihar has more than a dozen rivers besides the Ganga and more than 50,000 water bodies, counted by ICAR-CIFRI in 2022. The announcement carries no dredging volume per river, no order of work, no date.

Free of cost means free to Bihar. What NHAI spends to lift a cubic metre out of a riverbed, and who absorbs the loss if a dredged stockpile fails suitability after it has been paid for, is not stated.

Gadkari said the model could be extended to other states. Extension needs a unit cost. None was given.

The silt recovered may also be used in railways infrastructures and state road projects. Irrigation in Bihar will also be doubled. It will benefit farmers. With this initiative, we are moving towards making Bihar flood free...Stones recovered from the river will be used in construction of gabion walls to channelise flow of the river.