GUWAHATI, July 1 � Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) today demanded a package of Rs 30,000 crore from the Central Government for the flood victims of the State. The party also demanded a white paper from the State Government on the amount of Rs 2,572 crore it has spent during the last ten years on checking erosion.
Talking to The Assam Tribune here this evening, AGP working president Atul Bora said echoing the demand of the people of Majuli, that an international institute or organisation should be engaged in controlling flood and checking erosion of the famous river island.
The State Government is deliberately pushing the indigenous people of the State to the brink of extinction with its indifference towards resolving the problems of flood and erosion, Bora alleged. He informed that he along with AGP general secertary Pradip Hazarika and some of the central committee members of the party had visited Majuli yesterday and found that the people taking shelter in the relief camps there are facing acute shortage of relief materials, medicines and drinking water.
The local MLA of Majuli, who is also the Water Resources Minister of the State has so far not been able to visit the island, he alleged.
The people of the island alleged that around 15,000 families have been made to take shelter on the embankments since 1969, even though the official figures state the number to be 9,564. The official figures also reveal that only 500 of these ill-fated families have so far been rehabilitated, Bora said.
Flaying the Central Government for its failure to translate into reality the announcement made by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on May 5, 2005 that flood and erosion of Assam would be considered national problems, the AGP working president said that for the past about 40 years around 4,000 kms of the around 5,000 km-long embankments of the State were not repaired.
