Environment / Assam

IMPHAL, July 18 Manipur Chief Minister W Nipamacha Singh today said his government has ordered another survey of the proposed Tipaimukh dam to determine its height. A final decision would be taken only after studying the final survey report, he told the Assembly. Earlier, raising the issue, former Chief Minister Rishang Keishing of the Congress said he wanted to know the government's stand on the power project. The government had earlier opposed the dam on the ground that it would submerge large areas of the state. The Chief Minister said Northeastern Electric Power Corporation has been...

GUWAHATI, July 17: The Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge Project (JMBP) in Bangladesh will ultimately lead to devastating flood and severe erosion in the Brahmaputra valley of Assam, warned noted geographer Manik Kar of Nowgong College. Jamuna is the name of the Bangladesh part of the Brahmaputra. A PhD in flood hazard, Kar said in his paper Flood Hazard Mitigation is an International Riddle : A Case Study of the Brahmaputra Valley (India), represented at an international conference on disaster management organised by CARE, UNDP and Dhaka University recently, that the around billion-dollar JMBP...

GUWAHATI, July 17: In the aftermath of the recent Nandankanan Zoo tragedy, white tigers are likely be removed from all zoos across the country, said R Bhattacharyya, State Zoo DFO here yesterday. The DFO said that though no decision has been taken in this regard yet quarters concerned are toying with the idea as white tigers do not have any scientific value at all. The white tiger is born due to the elbino-genetic deformity for which it's resistance is lower than that of normal tigers. As the lineage of all white tigers in any zoo of the country can be traced directly or indirectly to one such...

GOLAGHAT, September 11: The wild animals in the Kaziranga National Park are facing starvation due to shortage of green grass, and are moving away for better shelter and pasture. Recently, it was reported that the land area of this world famous national park has shrunk to two-thirds of its original size due to erosion by the river Brahmaputra. Now the danger has emanated from the shortage of green grass because due to heavy rains throughout the session, the elephant grass could not be burnt properly. It is stated that perhaps due to want of good grass, a sizeable numbers of rhinos, deer and...

ROHMARIA, September 10: This place is hardly 20 kilometres by road from Dibrugarh's municipal limits, but even a four wheeled Gypsy ride took an hour and a half to reach the place. This is rural country, once famous for its lush agriculture. Most of the paddyfields have been eroded away by the Brahmaputra. If unchecked, the erosion threatens the existence of an Air Force base, Dibrugarh's civil airport at Mohanbari, several tea gardens and the residences and agricultural lands of the people of the area. The Rohmaria area falls under the Lahowal assembly segment and the population is mainly...

JAMUGURIHAT, September 5: The leader of the wild tuskers (popularly known as 'khora' by farmers) of Panpur reserve forest (the sixth addition of Kaziranga National Park) died at Hatimora Tapu, 3 k.m. away from Panpurghat under Jamuguri police station. According to eyewitness accounts, the tusker had received serious injuries in its mouth which deprived it of food for more than 35 days as it took shelter at the Ghiladhari river-bed (a tributary of Brahmaputra), and ultimately succumbed to his injuries. Sources said the wild tusker had been leading a herd of 28 to 32 wild elephants from Panpur...

AZARA, August 31: Despite the ban on cutting forest trees by the Supreme Court, illegal felling of trees in the entire south Kamrup area has been continuing unabated for the last several years. Wood smuggling has been flourishing at Chhaygaon, Bamunigaon, Kukurmara, Rampur, Loharghat, Chandubi, Rani, Azara, Dharapur, etc., in south Kamrup for the last several years. There are Rani and Mirza reserve forests under Guwahati division while Loharghat, Kulsi, Singra, Boko, Bonapara and Bamunigaon reserve forests fall under Kamrup West division in south Kamrup. Valuable trees like sal, segun, gamari...

GUWAHATI, August 18: The Rs 2,899-crore Tipaimukh dam project of the Brahmaputra Board involving three Northeast states -Manipur, Mizoram and Assam -still awaits inter-state clearance from the concerned state governments for its execution which is being pursued by the Brahmaputra Board and the ministry of water resources. The techno-economic angle of the detailed project report submitted by Brahmaputra Board was approved by the technical advisory committee of the concerned ministry in August, 1995. The cost of Rs 2,899 crore (at the 1995 price level) which would now be over Rs 3,000 crore...

GUWAHATI, August 17: The total cost of the proposed Pagladiya dam project of the Brahmaputra Board has been updated to Rs 522 crore as per the price levels of 1998. The project, which envisages flood moderation and irrigation benefits with incidental power generation was earlier approved from techno-economic angle of the technical advisory committee of the Union ministry of water resources at an estimated cost of Rs 472 crore (1998 price level). The project, involving the construction of an earlier dam of about 26 metre high, had already been cleared from environmental angle by the Union...

GUWAHATI, August 9: Both structural and non-structural methods should go hand in hand in taming the Brahmaputra. For the purpose of taming the river, a method should be designed in a manner, which gives equal emphasis on bamboo plantation near the roads and embankments and cane/nal and katah plantations near the river courses, according to Manik Kar, Professor of the Centre for Disaster Management, Tezpur University. He also called for an all-out social move in a concerted manner to mitigate disasters like floods. Kar who developed a flood history of the state through arduous research work...