PATNA: Avinash Kumar’s life changed in the blink of an eye. It was 3:30 pm on April 10. Avinash, a 27-year-old truck driver, was home that day. His two children — Ansh Raj (9), and Raj Nandini (6) – were playing outside the Shiva temple at Nagwan village in Bihar ’s Nalanda. And then lightning struck – he saw the flash before he heard the crack of thunder. His two kids, laughing just moments before, lay dead, struck by lightning.
A few metres away, four more villagers lay dead, felled by the killer lightning.
“My world is ravaged. Life has lost all colour, and I can find no happiness,” says Avinash, pointing to dozens of logs felled from gigantic palm trees that are lying nearby. “Lightning strikes kill us at will now. It was never this bad before.”
In rural Patna and Nalanda, there has been a curious correlation between the liquor ban — enacted almost nearly a decade ago (April 5, 2016) — and lightning deaths, with such fatalities almost quadrupling, in some years, since the ban took effect.
Scientists and villagers surmise that this could be because people have been cutting down tall, water-and-sap-filled palm trees, as they can no longer be used in the traditional toddy business. Back when these trees were valued for their role in manufacturing toddy, they used to act as nature’s own lightning rods, driving electrical fury away from more vulnerable targets like human life and property.
“People have been cutting down palm trees since they have lost interest in them. The toddy business, after the liquor ban came into effect, is finished,” says former mukhiya Karu Paswan.
The then Grand Alliance govt had enforced total prohibition, apparently under pressure from women, who had mounted a sustained protest against men’s tendency to squander away their money on drink. Although the ban was widely hailed in almost all quarters, the draconian law came in for sharp criticism after Bihar started reporting increased lightning-strike fatalities, coupled with rampant felling of palm trees, not to mention liquor-smuggling from Jharkhand and Bengal.
More Lightning Deaths
According to a report by the Bihar Economic Survey and Disaster Management Department, lightning strikes have claimed 2,446 lives between 2016 and April 2025 in the state, with rural people the worst affected.
A close analysis of the statistics reveals how fatal lightning strikes assumed alarming proportions since 2016. According to the report, lightning strikes claimed only 133 lives in 2015 and 114 in 2016, but as the palm trees were chopped off for money, they claimed 253 lives in 2019; 459 in 2020 (despite the Covid-19 lockdown); 280 in 2021; 400 in 2022; 242 in 2023; 303 in 2024; and 76 so far this year.
“We can’t ignore the rampant chopping of palm trees as normal,” says S K Singh, an agriculture scientist at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agriculture University, Samastipur. “This was always going to prove disastrous, as we are seeing now. The trunk and roots of palm trees naturally contain moisture, allowing them to conduct electricity to the ground without obstruction. This makes it an effective natural lightning conductor.” Singh feels the need of the hour is large-scale palm plantation. Only then, he says, can the lightning deaths — which have assumed alarming proportions — be arrested.
The Annual Lightning Report, 2023-24, states that lightning strikes have claimed as many as 2,937 lives in Bihar between 2014 and 2024.
The govt report identifies south-central Bihar as more prone to lightning strikes. In 2024, 72% of deaths (219 out of 303) from lightning strikes were reported only from these areas, with districts like Gaya, Jehanabad, Arwal, Nawada, Aurangabad, Patna, Nalanda, Kaimur, Rohtas, Bhojpur and Buxur the worst affected.
The report mentions that most of the lightning deaths took place between 12.30pm and 4pm, when most rural folk remain out of their homes for agriculture-related work or to tend cattle. July has claimed the highest toll with more men, expectedly, falling prey to lightning strikes.
Plant more palm trees
Bihar State Disaster Management Authority (BSDMA) vice-chairman Uday Kant Mishra said they were encouraging farmers to plant more palm trees, raising awareness about their unique ability to mitigate lightning strikes. “It’s well known that if there is a tall tree, lightning will strike it first,” Mishra explains. “The leaves of a palm tree spread out like an umbrella, providing a large area for lightning to strike.” Another BSDMA official said “lakhs of palm trees” had been felled in the aftermath of total prohibition since they have lost their “usefulness”. Several palm trees were found damaged from above and still standing on the ground during a recent visit to the rural areas.
Ranjit Kumar Verma, former vice-chancellor of Munger University and an expert on atmospheric phenomenon, links the rise in lightning-related deaths to environmental degradation. “The cutting down of trees and the reduction in the number of tree clusters are continuously contributing to the rise in lightning strikes,” Verma told TOI, recommending development of dense tree clusters, especially of species such as palm and mahua, to help dissipate electrical discharge in clouds and reduce the likelihood of lightning strikes.
Verma said planners should work out strategies to grow groves at regular intervals to provide continuous dissipation and earthing (neutralisation) of the electrostatic charges that build up in the sky, accumulating to thousands and even millions of volts. High trees such as the traditional local Bihar palm are suitable, he says.
Counting Losses
Bihar Rashtriya Pasi Sena, a platform of Pasi community people traditionally involved in toddy-tapping, has found that the area covered by palm tree plantations in Bihar has gone down by 40% in the past nine years.
“Palm tree plantation has almost stopped after the liquor ban, since the farmers or toddy tappers have lost interest in them. In fact, the palm trees are also being cut, since they have become almost useless in the new arrangement,” says Sujeet Kumar Chaudhary , national president, Rashtriya Pasi Sena.
Many toddy tappers who couldn’t afford costly LPG cooking gas use the wood for fuel. Further, palm tree wood is widely used for building houses due to its availability, versatility and sustainable properties.
Neera tapping
A worried Bihar govt has launched an ambitious scheme to promote production and sale of Neera (non-alcoholic palm sap) with the target to tap 2 lakh palm trees and generate 3.9 crore litres during toddy season. Approximately, 20,000 toddy tappers will be engaged for this. This scheme will be managed by the Bihar State Beverage Corporation Ltd (BSBCL).
“No doubt the govt claims to promote Neera, but it is a fact that govt doesn’t want a huge population slowly losing interest in the traditional business, which has been their bread and butter,” says Bihari Prasad, national general secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Pasi Samaj. He said 90% of the Pasi community were landless and dependent on the toddy business for survival, but the toddy ban had pushed them to the brink of starvation.
The idea could again attract this community to their traditional occupation. According to the Bihar Caste Survey, the total population of the Pasi caste in Bihar is 12,88,031, which is about 1% of the state’s population.
But until that happens, the excise and prohibition department is seizing liquor smuggled from other states, with 3.9 crore litres of liquor seized across the state between April 2016 and March 2025.
Back in his village in Nagawan, Avinash says any change of tack to encourage palm tree cultivation by govt isn’t of any use to him now. “I got compensation, but we are alone now. My wife keeps sobbing all the time, thinking about the children. It’s too late,” he says.
Why Villages are more Vulnerable
A lightning bolt carries a massive electrical charge. Even though it dissipates when it hits the ground, people in a given radius of the strike can still get electrocuted, a senior national disaster management expert told TOI, adding that direct hits are not the worry during thunder activity.
A few metres away, four more villagers lay dead, felled by the killer lightning.
“My world is ravaged. Life has lost all colour, and I can find no happiness,” says Avinash, pointing to dozens of logs felled from gigantic palm trees that are lying nearby. “Lightning strikes kill us at will now. It was never this bad before.”
In rural Patna and Nalanda, there has been a curious correlation between the liquor ban — enacted almost nearly a decade ago (April 5, 2016) — and lightning deaths, with such fatalities almost quadrupling, in some years, since the ban took effect.
Scientists and villagers surmise that this could be because people have been cutting down tall, water-and-sap-filled palm trees, as they can no longer be used in the traditional toddy business. Back when these trees were valued for their role in manufacturing toddy, they used to act as nature’s own lightning rods, driving electrical fury away from more vulnerable targets like human life and property.
“People have been cutting down palm trees since they have lost interest in them. The toddy business, after the liquor ban came into effect, is finished,” says former mukhiya Karu Paswan.
The then Grand Alliance govt had enforced total prohibition, apparently under pressure from women, who had mounted a sustained protest against men’s tendency to squander away their money on drink. Although the ban was widely hailed in almost all quarters, the draconian law came in for sharp criticism after Bihar started reporting increased lightning-strike fatalities, coupled with rampant felling of palm trees, not to mention liquor-smuggling from Jharkhand and Bengal.
More Lightning Deaths
According to a report by the Bihar Economic Survey and Disaster Management Department, lightning strikes have claimed 2,446 lives between 2016 and April 2025 in the state, with rural people the worst affected.
A close analysis of the statistics reveals how fatal lightning strikes assumed alarming proportions since 2016. According to the report, lightning strikes claimed only 133 lives in 2015 and 114 in 2016, but as the palm trees were chopped off for money, they claimed 253 lives in 2019; 459 in 2020 (despite the Covid-19 lockdown); 280 in 2021; 400 in 2022; 242 in 2023; 303 in 2024; and 76 so far this year.
“We can’t ignore the rampant chopping of palm trees as normal,” says S K Singh, an agriculture scientist at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agriculture University, Samastipur. “This was always going to prove disastrous, as we are seeing now. The trunk and roots of palm trees naturally contain moisture, allowing them to conduct electricity to the ground without obstruction. This makes it an effective natural lightning conductor.” Singh feels the need of the hour is large-scale palm plantation. Only then, he says, can the lightning deaths — which have assumed alarming proportions — be arrested.
The Annual Lightning Report, 2023-24, states that lightning strikes have claimed as many as 2,937 lives in Bihar between 2014 and 2024.
The govt report identifies south-central Bihar as more prone to lightning strikes. In 2024, 72% of deaths (219 out of 303) from lightning strikes were reported only from these areas, with districts like Gaya, Jehanabad, Arwal, Nawada, Aurangabad, Patna, Nalanda, Kaimur, Rohtas, Bhojpur and Buxur the worst affected.
The report mentions that most of the lightning deaths took place between 12.30pm and 4pm, when most rural folk remain out of their homes for agriculture-related work or to tend cattle. July has claimed the highest toll with more men, expectedly, falling prey to lightning strikes.
Plant more palm trees
Bihar State Disaster Management Authority (BSDMA) vice-chairman Uday Kant Mishra said they were encouraging farmers to plant more palm trees, raising awareness about their unique ability to mitigate lightning strikes. “It’s well known that if there is a tall tree, lightning will strike it first,” Mishra explains. “The leaves of a palm tree spread out like an umbrella, providing a large area for lightning to strike.” Another BSDMA official said “lakhs of palm trees” had been felled in the aftermath of total prohibition since they have lost their “usefulness”. Several palm trees were found damaged from above and still standing on the ground during a recent visit to the rural areas.
Ranjit Kumar Verma, former vice-chancellor of Munger University and an expert on atmospheric phenomenon, links the rise in lightning-related deaths to environmental degradation. “The cutting down of trees and the reduction in the number of tree clusters are continuously contributing to the rise in lightning strikes,” Verma told TOI, recommending development of dense tree clusters, especially of species such as palm and mahua, to help dissipate electrical discharge in clouds and reduce the likelihood of lightning strikes.
Verma said planners should work out strategies to grow groves at regular intervals to provide continuous dissipation and earthing (neutralisation) of the electrostatic charges that build up in the sky, accumulating to thousands and even millions of volts. High trees such as the traditional local Bihar palm are suitable, he says.
Counting Losses
Bihar Rashtriya Pasi Sena, a platform of Pasi community people traditionally involved in toddy-tapping, has found that the area covered by palm tree plantations in Bihar has gone down by 40% in the past nine years.
“Palm tree plantation has almost stopped after the liquor ban, since the farmers or toddy tappers have lost interest in them. In fact, the palm trees are also being cut, since they have become almost useless in the new arrangement,” says Sujeet Kumar Chaudhary , national president, Rashtriya Pasi Sena.
Many toddy tappers who couldn’t afford costly LPG cooking gas use the wood for fuel. Further, palm tree wood is widely used for building houses due to its availability, versatility and sustainable properties.
Neera tapping
A worried Bihar govt has launched an ambitious scheme to promote production and sale of Neera (non-alcoholic palm sap) with the target to tap 2 lakh palm trees and generate 3.9 crore litres during toddy season. Approximately, 20,000 toddy tappers will be engaged for this. This scheme will be managed by the Bihar State Beverage Corporation Ltd (BSBCL).
“No doubt the govt claims to promote Neera, but it is a fact that govt doesn’t want a huge population slowly losing interest in the traditional business, which has been their bread and butter,” says Bihari Prasad, national general secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Pasi Samaj. He said 90% of the Pasi community were landless and dependent on the toddy business for survival, but the toddy ban had pushed them to the brink of starvation.
The idea could again attract this community to their traditional occupation. According to the Bihar Caste Survey, the total population of the Pasi caste in Bihar is 12,88,031, which is about 1% of the state’s population.
But until that happens, the excise and prohibition department is seizing liquor smuggled from other states, with 3.9 crore litres of liquor seized across the state between April 2016 and March 2025.
Back in his village in Nagawan, Avinash says any change of tack to encourage palm tree cultivation by govt isn’t of any use to him now. “I got compensation, but we are alone now. My wife keeps sobbing all the time, thinking about the children. It’s too late,” he says.
Why Villages are more Vulnerable
A lightning bolt carries a massive electrical charge. Even though it dissipates when it hits the ground, people in a given radius of the strike can still get electrocuted, a senior national disaster management expert told TOI, adding that direct hits are not the worry during thunder activity.
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