GUWAHATI, July 29 ? While the floods continue to wreak havoc in the State, claiming over 200 lives so far and destroying cropland, property and infrastructure worth thousands of crores of rupees, a long-term solution to this perennial problem continues to elude the Government and policy-makers. The predicament of the State is compounded by the fact that of its 4,400 km-long network of embankments, over 92 per cent have outlived their normal life span of 20 years, which is even less in a rain-fed State like Assam. Most of the embankments date back to the 50s and the 60s, and the constant wear and tear has considerably lessened their resistance to floods. This was evident in the ongoing floods that have resulted in breaches at over 130 places.
Again, the maintenance of this huge network of embankments leaves a lot to be desired. ?We require about Rs 70 crore a year for maintenance of the embankments, but the Rs five crore we are getting for the purpose is totally inadequate to meet the situation,? a source in the State Water |Resource Department told The Assam Tribune today. ?And this year the damage to the embankments has been unprecedented because of the magnitude of the floods,? it said, adding that not only were the embankments breached, but in many areas floodwater was flowing well above the embankments.
In many cases, the quality of the soil used in the embankments is rather poor and such embankments remain most vulnerable to erosion. ?Embankments are generally constructed with locally available soil, which is sometimes sandy in composition and can get disintegrated quickly,? the source said. While the department is busy doing a post-mortem and assessing the damages, a clear picture will emerge only after the water recedes. ?As per our preliminary assessment itself, we will need Rs 350 crore and Rs 36 crore for the |Brahmaputra Valley and the Barak Valley respectively for restoration of the embankments,? the source said and added that repairing works would be taken up on a war-footing once the water level retreated.
Terming the current phase of floods that has affected all the 27 districts of the State as a ?big natural disaster,? which caught everyone unawares, the source admitted that better water management could have mitigated the onslaught of the floods to an extent. The excess water of the Kapili project was released all of a sudden, without a careful monitoring of the developing situation. The surplus rainfall in the Assam and in the neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh has also aggravated the situation.
Increased human activity and encroachment on the embankments that are already fragile, have also led to their rapid deterioration. Many of the embankments are permanently settled by people and the routine human activities subject them to a lot of pressure. Dams made of earth, no doubt, are the immediate, cheapest and direct means to prevent flood, they are not the long-term answer to contain massive floods in a riparian State like Assam, which, significantly, has the world?s largest network of rivers vis-?-vis a given geographical area. ?Besides this huge river network involving the mighty Brahmaputra and its innumerable tributaries, the State is rendered extremely flood-prone by its peculiar geographical location, topography, hydro-meteorological situation and synchronisation of floods in all the rivers,? the source said. Add to this the rise in the riverbeds following the great earthquake of 1950, the increased accumulation of silt in the rivers, the abnormally high rainfall in the region, the release of excess water from neighbouring uphill countries, etc., and the problem assumes gigantic proportions.
An effective and long-term solution, the source said, must involve construction of multi-purpose dams with proper flood cushioning at the upper catchment areas of the Brahmaputra where it is joined by the Lohit, Dibang and the Dihang, accounting for 60 per cent of its water volume. Since the floods negate whatever developments take place in the State, it is imperative that a lasting flood-control mechanism is worked out at the earliest. But this is not going to happen unless flood management is recognised as the core sector of infrastructural development in the State. The current wave of floods in the State has affected 1.2 crore people and 43 lakh livestocks, destroyed over 18 lakh hectares of cropland, wiped out five lakh houses, and shattered the road network which alone will need, by a conservative estimate, Rs 510 crore for restoration. Over 13 lakh people are still languishing in relief camps.