The Centre has hinted at “restructuring” and “revamping” the Brahmaputra Board, a statutory body set up by the central government way back in 1980 to control flood and erosion in the Brahmaputra Valley. The role of the Brahmaputra Board had been under attack from various quarters in Assam for it has almost no appreciable achievement to its credit till date.
“A nodal group has already been constituted by the Union water resources ministry to look into all aspects concerning restructuring of the Brahmaputra Board with a wider mandate as a basin level authority. The Brahmaputra Board has to brace up to the major challenges before it and has to emerge as a vibrant organisation for the benefit of the entire North Eastern Region including Sikkim,” said Union water resources minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.
However, Bansal regretted that only Rs 3,000 crore out of Rs 8,000 crore, allocated to the region during the 11th plan for flood management, was utilised by the state governments of the region.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi lamented that though the Brahmaputra Board was set up as a multi-purpose body, it had confined its activities to limited works. “The Board must gear up its activities in a big way and come up with projects and schemes to control the twin problems of flood and erosion in the state and the region,” said Gogoi.
Gogoi said that more than floods, erosion was a serious problem in Assam as it resulted in permanent land loss and crippled a family. “It is an area where much importance has to be accorded by the central government and the Brahmaputra Board,” said Gogoi.
He said more than 8 lakh people from Assam had been rendered homeless and over 4 lakh hectares of land area had been washed away by the Brahmaputra till date.
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Gogoi urged the Brahmaputra Board and the Central Water Commission (CWC) to come up with a strategy as adopted by the Bangladesh government to channelize the river for mitigating the problem of erosion. “The strategy to mitigate the problem of erosion of Brahmaputra river called Jamuna in Bangladesh has to be replicated by us to contain the erosion problem in Assam and elsewhere in the region,” added Gogoi.
The chief minister, while pointing out the delay in the constitution of North East Water Regulatory Authority (NEWRA) following objections from Arunachal Pradesh government, said the Centre must initiate action to set up “some sort of an authority to deal with the problems of flood and erosion in Assam.” Bansal said his department was concerned over the delay regarding the matter relating to NEWRA and had interactions with state governments on constitution of such an authority. “We are interacting with the state government on setting up of NEWRA and we will submit a report to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to enable the Union government to take a decision on the matter,” Bansal said.
The Union minister was in Guwahati to chair a meeting to discuss the action plan of the Brahmaputra Board in the 12th five year plan and on the spill over of schemes of the 11th Plan and submission of new schemes for which detailed project reports (DPRs) have been prepared. Another such meeting of the Brahmaputra Board will be held in June this year.