Assam: Ageing embankments and erosion aggravate the flood problem

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: Measures for flood control, especially the construction of embankments, were started in Assam after the introduction of the National Water Policy in 1954. Of the embankments in the state, 90% of them were constructed more than 40 years ago, which means that their lifespan is almost over. As a result, frequent breaches of embankments occur whenever floods hit the state.

According to Rashtriya Barh Ayog, the flood-prone area of Assam is 31,500 square kilometres, out of which the protected area is 16,500 square km, leaving 15,000 sq km of flood-prone area still unprotected. Due to this, floods wreak havoc each year when they strike the state.

Along with floods, the other major problem in the state is erosion, which poses a challenge to the government. Measures adopted to check erosion are insufficient, to say the least. The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers, with their 48 major tributaries and innumerable sub-tributaries, pose a major threat of erosion due to the soft texture of the soil, a mix of clay and sand, which is easily eroded.

Official sources said that a study revealed that an area of 4.27 lakh hectares of land has been eroded by the rivers since 1950, which is 7.4% of the total area of Assam. The average annual rate of erosion in Assam is 8,000 hectares. The deposition of silt on the riverbeds has made the rivers shallower, and water spills over the banks and spreads to a larger area as a result. This exacerbates the erosion problem.

A retired engineer from the Water Resources Department said that erosion is a far more dangerous problem for Assam than floods. Floods come and go, and they cause some damage, but the damage caused by erosion is more permanent. It is also not possible for the government to check erosion in each and every threatened place. The measures taken to check erosion till now are not scientific, and these have proven to be ineffective in checking erosion. So, it is evident that the age-old embankments and erosion have aggravated the flood problem in the state, he opined.

Also Read: Brahmaputra river flowing in ‘severe situation’: Central Water Commission (sentinelassam.com)

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