Development / Assam

HOJAI, June 4 – As already reported, the Supreme Court of India has constituted one “Special Investigation Team (SIT)” for protection of forests and wildlife of Assam, as well as other north-eastern states, vide its order dated 13/01/2000, in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 202/95, in the matter of Godavarman Tirumalpad-vs-Union of India & Others. The service of a few Forest officers of Assam in the detection and seizure of illegal timber transportation were recognised by the Supreme Court of India and issued order dated July 14, 2003 in writ petition (Civil) No. 202/95, in the matter of Godavarman...

GUWAHATI, June 4 – Rampant illegal earth-cutting on the hills in and around the city has posed a serious threat to the environment besides proving to be a nuisance to the people living in those areas. Dhupolia hills, Jyotikuchi, on the outskirts of the city, is one such area subjected to persistent earth-cutting for years. So much so that little now remains of what used to be a green cover on this once-beautiful hill.

Narrating their tale of woe, residents of the locality today told newsmen that throughout the year, except during the rainy season, earth-cutting goes on unabated on the...

NEW DELHI, June 4 — The Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport is likely to become hub of air operation of Alliance Air’s regional air service and the North-East is again going to be back on the international air map with Indian Airlines shortly resuming the Guwahati-Bangkok flight. Announcing this at a press conference here today Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said that the assurance to the effect was given by Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel. The shifting of operational base of the regional air service from Kolkata to Guwahati was a long-pending demand as was the demand for resumption of the...

DERGAON, June 2 – A gang of 40 angry tea labourers of Numaligarh tea estate attacked the Numaligarh Forest Beat Office at around 1.30 am on May 29 following a devastation created by wild elephants. The agitated youths destroyed the office building and also assaulted the forest officials. One forest official Thaneswar Nath received a serious injury in the attack. According to information, a group of wild pachyderms came down from Deopahar to the TE in the evening of May 29. The forest officials tried to change the route of the elephants by making noise but the pachyderms again came to the TE...

GUWAHATI, June 2 – More than floods, it is erosion that is posing a serious threat to Assam and according to an estimate, the State is losing land valued at Rs 300 crore a year due to severe erosion, particularly all along the south bank of the river Brahmaputra. Highly placed official sources told The Assam Tribune that the estimate of the loss was a very conservative one as the damage caused to different kinds of structures and crops were not taken into account while preparing the estimate. Sources also revealed that the plain districts of Assam already lost seven percent of the total land...

GOLAGHAT, May 31 – The forests in Golaghat district are facing a virtual wipe out. The roads along which trees were beautifully lined now look much the worse for a malady of epidemic proportions – timber smuggling. This practice has taken its toll on the entire area even if families live life to the fullest from profits earned through this clandestine trade.

In Golaghat district, till a couple of years ago, huge trees, planted in the pre-independence time, would stand clustered nicely on both sides of the highways. Those trees would not only protect the highways from erosion but are...

Jorhat, May 28: The Kaziranga National Park will have an added attraction soon. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has sanctioned funds to transform a hamlet named Durgapur, adjacent to the abode of the one-horned rhino, into a model village where tourists can get a taste of the Assamese way of life.

Bokakhat sub-divisional officer Debo Kumar Nath said work on the project would begin early next month.

The village will have a namghar (prayer hall), a batsora (gateway) in each house, a community hall and 73 families. “Once the village is inaugurated, tourists visiting the national...

New Delhi, May 26: Four years after it was approved and efforts were made to kickstart the scheme, the Pagladiya dam project has been identified as one of the “three problem areas” faced by the Union ministry of water resources. Newly-appointed minister of water resources Priya Ranjan Das Munshi said, “The Pagladiya project has been earmarked as one of the three projects that are problematic which would require careful handling by the ministry. The other two are Narmada and Cauvery.”

First proposed in the sixties, the project was cleared in 2000 with the objective of protecting 40,000 hectares...

Kokrajhar, May 25: Given his fascination for “border” themes, filmmaker J.P. Datta may not need too much prodding to make a film on the travails of the residents of Darranga, a once thriving town on the Indo-Bhutan border in Assam. Since the Royal Bhutan Army’s offensive against militants, life has been unkind to several thousand families dependent on trade with the Bhutanese people for their livelihood.

Darranga is about 115 km from Nalbari town and part of the newly created Baska district, which is administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council. The population is a mix of Bodos, Nepalis...

BISWANATH CHARIALI, May 25— About 58,000 hectares of reserve forest areas in north Assam have been devastated following aggression by Arunachal Pradesh on the one hand and encroachment by local people and migrants on the other. Though north Assam has been enriched naturally by 28 forest reservers, existence of many of them has remained in hoardings only. In the Sonitpur district alone, which is home to 13 reserve forests with total area of 77,064.22 hectares, about 30,943 hectares of forest cover has been eliminated and encroached upon by various sects of people.

Of late, Arunachali...