From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: Agonised by perennial flood and erosion problem, Assam government on Monday renewed its plea before the Centre for fund to implement a project to strengthen 3340 kms of “vulnerable” embankments along the Brahmaputra and several of its tributaries.
Informing this Assam water resource minister Rajib Lochan Pegu said that continuous rise in river beds had increased chances of floods in recent years in the State.
“We have already requested the Centre to provide us 100 per cent fund for restructuring and strengthening river embankments in order to minimize the chances of floods. This apart, we also want to dredge the river-beds so that there was more space for the water to flow unhindered and without overtopping and breaching the embankments,” minister Pegu said.
Assam has 4459 kms of embankments along the Brahmaputra and most of its tributaries, of which 950 kms have been identified as “extremely vulnerable” and 2390 kms “vulnerable”.
A major portion of these embankments have also become old and hence weak.
The embankments have been repeatedly breached by rivers spate during the flood season every year. According to figures disclosed by the minister , there were 234 breaches during the 1988 floods, 354 during 2004 flood.
The rivers caused 195 breaches in 2007, while the number of breaches caused in the two waves of floods this year has been put at 56.
Meanwhile, Assam government has appealed to neighboring Arunachal Pradesh to support its proposal to set up the North-East Water Resource Authority (NEWRA) to facilitate inter-state initiatives to tame and manage the rivers. Though the Centre had already agreed in principle to set up the NEWRA, persistent opposition from Arunachal Pradesh government has remained a hurdle in the process.
Pegu pointed out at increasing volume of silt and slush is being carried down by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries from the catchment areas in Arunachal Pradesh where massive deforestation is taking place in the upstream areas.
Deforestation leads to erosion of the top soil which in turn has increased the volume of slush suspending in water of Brahmaputra River.
Meanwhile,the flood has left a trail of devastation in the Sate especially in paddy growing areas. According to figures available from the State Agriculture Department 2,54,935 hectares of cropland has been affected by the flood and the crop loss has been well over 50 per cent in the entire flood-ravaged agricultural land.
Nearly a half of the flood-affected cropland, i.e., 1,23,281 hectares belonged to small and medium farmers. A total of 1,30,910 hectares of affected land belonged to farmers other than small and medium farmers.
While all the districts of the State except Dima Hasao (NC Hills) were affected, Barpeta district had the maximum cropland area affected by the floods at 32,221 hectares, followed by Lakhimpur (20,399 ha), Nalbari (19,901 ha), Darrang (18,415 ha), Nagaon (18,071 ha), Jorhat (16,021 ha), and Chirang (14,052 ha).