Guwahati: In a move to draw Centre’s attention to the alarming development of t the Brahmaputra river water turning black in parts of Assam, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal discussed the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the latter’s official residence in New Delhi in presence of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Minister of Road Transport, Water Resources and River Development Nitin Gadkari, Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Sonowal requested Prime Minister Modi to accord utmost importance and help the state to take remedial steps, according to an official source here.
Prime Minister Modi assured Sonowal that the Centre took up the matter seriously and even engaged Central Water Commission to look into matter and directed the Ministry of Water Resources to take remedial steps on a war footing.
Prime Minister Modi also asked other ministries to work in synergy and directed the Ministry of Water Resources to ensure scientific tests of the Brahmaputra River water to ascertain the physical and chemical composition of the river water where it turned black. Considering the trans-national extent of the Brahmaputra Prime Minister Modi also asked the Foreign Affairs Ministry to take up the matter with the respective countries to get into the root cause of the problem and find a positive solution.
Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj maintained that her ministry took up the matter very seriously as her ministry had already contacted with China and a pragmatic and exhaustive study was being undertaken to find the real cause.
Meanwhile, Assam government has collected samples of Brahmaputra water from 15 places from Jonai to Dhubri along the river’s course in the state and sent the same to the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad and IIT, Guwahati.
