State water resources dept ill-equipped

DIBRUGARH, May 14 – Even as the Brahmaputra flows menacingly and threatens to erode major chunks of its banks on either side throughout Assam, the state Water Resources Department has been found wanting to meet emergencies. It is just that the erosion has not yet seriously affected major urban centres of the state, due to which bureaucrats and engineers of the department as well as the Assam Water Resources minister continue to draw their salaries in peace.

With torrential rains battering upper Assam for almost two straight months, it is surprising that flooding and erosion by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries is yet to take a heavy human toll in the region. Even so, the river has eaten away vast chunks of its south bank at Rohmaria, Nagaghuli as well as at Mohanaghat, right within the municipal limits here. While the erosion menace at Rohmaria and Nagaghuli are a cause for concern, it is a panicky situation in the city here with the Brahmaputra steadily eroding its bank at Mohanaghat.

All this while, the civil administration officials here are doing their routine bureaucratic works which include promulgation of Section 144 CrPC along the Brahmaputra and then finding fault with others.

The Water Resources department here has been preparing and submitting several schemes and projects for river training and flood control measures in the Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts. All these have been gathering dust on the desks of civil babus here and in Dispur and Delhi. One will always find a hundred and one reasons for causing these delays, but not a single one to expedite the file clearance process. Caught in this quagmire are the Rs 360 crore scheme of erosion control at Rohmaria and upstream, a Rs 59 crore scheme for Rohmaria, a Rs 7 crore scheme for strengthening stone spurs at Nagaghuli and Rs 2 crore scheme for anti erosion measures near Mohanaghat. The Asian Development Bank too is yet to commence work on a promised river protection project for the city, said to cost about Rs 160 crore.

Engineers of the Water Resources department here told this newspaper today that timely completion of the proposed projects for the Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts would offer long term protection to the area from the vagaries of the Brahmaputra. With projects remaining stalled at various government departments on one pretext or the other for months and years on end, it is ultimately the common tax paying resident citizen who has to live in uncertainty. A source said the “additional cost burden” of having projects approved by politicians at Dispur is also a major constraint. This “additional cost burden” is invariably borne by contractors and the result is poor quality of work and short supply of materials, both to the detriment of civil society at large.

Since this morning, truckloads of boulders and RCC porcupine material are being unloaded at the Mohanaghat area for dropping into the Brahmaputra, in an effort to check erosion. Locals say the quantity is woefully inadequate, given the situation. Water Resources engineers said more quantities would be dropped in the coming days. At Nagaghuli too, contractors are piling truckloads of boulders since the past several days. The only resentment is that the supplies are a fragment of what is actually required.

For the state government, the erosion threat in the Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts as well as elsewhere in the state is yet to attain significance on its administrative agenda. Or so it seems. Otherwise the Water Resources department would not have been held under a tight leash even in these turbulent times. Before it is a little too late in the day, Dispur and Delhi has to wake up.