Itanagar: Criticising the Central Water Commission’s report “painting a rosy picture” of the Siang river, Lok Sabha MP from Arunachal Pradesh Ninong Ering has demanded dredging of its riverbed. The river enters Arunachal Pradesh from China, where it is known as Tsangpo. “The condition of Siang river is in a sorry state, and yet the CWC data paints a rosy picture to keep real suffering and plight of people in oblivion,” Ering said in a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday. The river witnessed sudden blackening with heavy turbidity last year, and now the water level has risen due to sedimentation and deposition, the Congress MP from Arunachal East Parliamentary Constituency said. Ering said large portions of agricultural land have been damaged due to heavy erosion of the Siang river, and the river water has left “many natives homeless and in total chaos.” “In the absence of embankments, villagers somehow built sandbags embankment to protect their lives. Few stranded people were even airlifted by the Air Force at Jampani,” he said in the letter. (PTI)
