At the officials meet an agitated Kumar sought to know why set principles like compulsory registration of boats were not followed and facilities were not arranged for people. He also asked about the deficiencies in micro-level planning for the kite festival.
Bihar has a poor track record of fixing responsibilities in tragedies that stink of failures on the part of event organisers and government officials. This disdain primarily owes to the indifferent approach of the chief minister, Nitish Kumar towards the killer incidents and also towards the victims. Every time an accident takes place Kumar comes out with his usual rhetoric; “the government has taken the accident very seriously. A high level probe has been ordered and any body found responsible for it would not be spared”

This time too a day after the boat accident in which 24 persons mostly youth were drowned Kumar entrusted the probe to a two-member inquiry committee into the mishap and promised to take 'appropriate action' against the officials found responsible for the lapses. But 48 hours after the accident, the probe had made little headway in finding out which department has actually behind organising the kite festival, which led to tragedy. The inquiry committee is headed by Nitish’s blue eyed bureaucrat, the disaster management's principal secretary Pratyay Amrit.

It is strange that Kumar feigned about the department actually involved in the event, but he had also admitted that the tourism department had invited people at the 'kite festival'. “Yesterday I had called officers at my residence and asked them as what arrangements they had made to transport people from the state capital to diara area and their return journey. How many security personnel were deployed there? There is already a guideline that boats would not ply after the sunset, but video clippings of the mishap indicate that the ill-fated boat was plying after the sunset. How it happened? The probe committee will find out who is responsible for this lapse,' CM said and reiterated the 'responsible officers would not be spared irrespective of their affiliations and positions.'

However after the accident Kumar denied of proper knowledge in advance about the kite festival. 'Had I been aware of the festival, I would have necessarily asked three-four questions about the preparations from the officers. I am habitual of asking questions about arrangements before any big event,' he said. He said the government has now decided that no big event of any department would be allowed in future without clearance from the chief secretary.

Nitish also expressed surprise over use of his photograph in the advertisement of kite festival. Usually the advertisement is released by the Public Relations department. If at all what Nitish’s says is to be relied then it obviously implied that a disconnect, a communication gap has crept in the functioning of the departments and the government. Had it not been the case, how could his secretariat was no aware or not informed by the concerned officials? However, Kumar has promised to have it also probed.

Officials say there was no coordination between the Tourism department and the Saran and Patna district administrations. The kite festival and boat tragedy had taken place in an area in Saran district. But the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police of Saran neither visited the site to oversee the preparations nor were present on the day of festival.

It cannot be that Kumar would get credit for good administrative arrangements for 'Prakashotsav' and 'Kalchakra' while the administrative officers are held responsible for failures. This is not the first accident in which large number of casualties had taken place. The most recent examples include the stampede at the gates of Gandhi Maidan right after Ravan Vadh on Dussehra in 2014 in which 33 persons died and the stampede in 2012 during Chhath at Adalat Ghat in Patna that claimed 18 lives. The government had promptly ordered probes into these incidents, asserting that action would be taken against lax officials. However, no official was penalised for either incident.

Usually within a week the tragedy is forgotten and is consigned to the debris of the files. Even the secretariat of the chief minister is not bothered of following up the matter with the concerned officials. Apart from the local factors that led to the tragedy, it is alleged no security review was conducted either by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar or his deputy Tejaswi Prasad Yadav, who is also the minister in charge of Saran district. Tourism Minister Anita Devi did not even bother to visit the kite-flying site to review the security arrangements.

An official with the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) said that the passengers could “have been saved easily if we had not been diverted from patrolling duty to ferry others in the afternoon”. The NDRF teams were not called in as standby for the festival, which is being held annually for the last three years, and has been attracting thousands. “We were called by the state disaster management department only after the tragedy. We came with 16 boats and have been carrying out rescue operations,” said an NDRF official. The gruesome drowning incident makes it absolutely clear that governance has become the victim of the internecine conflict between the grand alliance partners and Kumar has been losing his grip on it. (IPA Service)