Flooding
Flooding is a regular phenomenon in the Baitarani basin. Its inhabitants live in constant fear of loss to life and property. Even a two-day rain in July in 2005 caused the river to overflow its banks, affecting 140,000 people in 220 villages of Jajpur and Bhadrak districts. In at least two places the embankments were breached and marooning occurred, inflicting massive losses of life and property. Apart from the long pending construction of a dam at Bhimkund and proposed other measures like river bed excavation and construction of embankments etc. in the deltaic region, there remain the unaddressed land use issues in the upstream, to which, till date, no serious thoughts or efforts have been directed.
Read more about this topic: River Baitarani