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Guwahati, Oct. 25: The Assam Government has started preparations to deal with next year’s floods and tenders will be floated for construction of new embankments shortly. Moreover, all the breaches of embankments caused during floods. This year have already been plugged, Minister in charge of Water Resources, Pijush Hazarika said.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, Hazarika said that around 240 km of new embankments would be constructed soon and tenders for it would be floated soon. The work is scheduled to start in January and the target is to complete it as soon as possible to mitigate flood damages.
He revealed that there is feasibility for the construction of another 100 km of embankments and that would be done in a phased manner.
The Minister said that the Central Government has taken around Rs 5,000 crore loan from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to tackle the problems of flood and erosion in Assam.
The Centre will repay 90 per cent of the loan and the State Government will have to repay 10 per cent. From that amount, the Water Resources Department will get Rs 1500 crore annually for strengthening the embankments and taking up erosion protection measures. Apart from that, the Department will get Rs 700 crore from the State Budget annually.
He alleged that during the Congress regime, the Water Resources Department used to get only around Rs 250 crore annually and that is why, the embankments could not be repaired and strengthened for a long time. “Now money is not an issue and the Department can take positive steps for dealing with flood and erosion,” he added.
On the condition of the embankments breached in this year’s floods, Hazarika revealed that only 12 embankments of the Water Resources Department were breached in floods this year and those were plugged immediately. “The embankments breached in the first wave of floods were repaired immediately and that is why, not much damage was caused in the second and third waves,” he added.
The Minister said that there was a time when more than 40 embankment breaches took place in floods every year and that happened because the Department did not have enough money to strengthen the embankments. But the situation has now changed as there is no shortage of funds, he added.
– By R Dutta Choudhury
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