This is not a story about floods in Bihar. This is a story about how an entire society has been corrupted by money meant to build embankments for flood control. A lesson that poor environmental management, especially one which emphasises construction, leads to corruption which may be difficult to get rid of. More so if it gets intertwined with the political culture. The bogey of floods was, and still is, being used to generate kickbacks for a nexus of politicians, bureaucrats, engineers and contractors in the state. Kilometres of embankments have been built but the flood prone area in the state has only increased and so has the misery of the people. A report by Manish Tiwari