Chief Secretary Amrit Lal Meena Chairs Key Meeting on Bihar’s District Gazetteers and Water Atlas

Patna: Bihar’s top administrative officials convened on Tuesday to review the utility of the newly released ‘Gazetteer-cum-Atlas of Water Bodies’ and to fast-track the preparation of district gazetteers for all seven districts in the Purnia and Kosi divisions.

Chief Secretary Amrit Lal Meena chaired the meeting, where Revenue Department officials, led by Additional Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar Singh, presented recent developments including the completion of gazetteers for Patna and Darbhanga districts. Singh informed that work is now underway to draft gazetteers for Purnia, Katihar, Araria, Kishanganj, Saharsa, Supaul, and Madhepura, in collaboration with the Institute of Human Development, New Delhi.

District gazetteers—comprehensive documents offering insights into a district’s socio-economic, historical, and cultural landscape—are considered vital for academic research and government planning. A state-level advisory committee with experts from history, geography, archaeology, and environmental sciences is already supporting this initiative. Singh instructed all district collectors in the Purnia and Kosi regions to set up similar committees at the district level to facilitate field-level research.

The department aims to publish these gazetteers within a year and will deploy research teams to each district to gather verified information through local engagement with senior academics, journalists, and administrators.

The meeting also highlighted the significance of the recently published ‘Gazetteer-cum-Atlas of Water Bodies’. The atlas, under preparation since 2020, is seen as a key resource for promoting water conservation and managing Bihar’s wetland ecosystems. The atlas includes data to support conservation of Ramsar-recognised sites—Kanwar Lake in Begusarai and Nagi-Nakti Lakes in Jamui—and will aid multiple departments, including rural development, tourism, water resources, and environment.

Block-level maps will be made available to districts soon, and the atlas will be further customised as per specific departmental needs. Chief Secretary Meena offered several suggestions to enhance the book’s utility, which the department has committed to implementing.

Senior officials including secretaries, directors, district magistrates, and additional collectors (revenue) from various departments participated in the meeting.