Congress demands mending of dykes, sluice gates in Cachar

Silchar, Feb 28: Ahead of the monsoon season this year, the Silchar District Congress Committee has expressed deep concerns on the status of sluice gates and dykes in the district.

A delegation of the Silchar District Congress Committee visited the Rongpur Angarjur, ward no 7 & 8, Bethukandi, Berenga, Sonabarighat, Raipur etc area on Saturday and physically verified about the present position of the E&D dyke in the said locations and found that no work to mend the condition of the dykes started as yet and the E&D dyke position remains to be a matter of grave concern as it was before after the devastating flood in the year June 2022.

In this backdrop, the Congress party submitted a memorandum to Cachar Deputy Commissioner Rohan Kumar Jha on Monday drawing his attention and sought his intervention regarding construction/renovation/rising the level of E&D dyke with sluice gate from Sonabarighat to Tarapur Mazumdar Bazar including Bethukandi and Berenga area. Also, the Congress leaders demanded construction of dyke at Rongpur Angarjur, in ward no 7 & 8 and at Raipur of Rajnagar area on emergent basis.

Tamal Kanti Banik, president of Silchar District Congress Committee said, "due to devastating flood in 2022, the entire Silchar town with most parts of the rest of the district were submerged by the flood water and consequently few lakhs of people were severely affected. The total loss of the government and the people amounting to few crores of rupees. A large section of the population were left homeless as their homes were washed away by the flood water. The flood occurred due to heavy breach in the earthen dyke and overtopping the dyke by the flood water in Rongpur, Bethukandi, Berenga, Sonabarighat, Raipur and other areas. Since then, people raised demands for construction of earthen dyke from Sonabarighat to Mazumdar Bazar with rising the dyke level and specifically the construction and strengthening the dyke at Bethukandi, Berenga and Sonabarighat. It is also demanded by the public and also we do echo that the construction of sluice gate at Betukandi that ought to be completed to flush out the stagnant water of Mahisabeel. There are some other sluice gates at places within Silchar town area which requires for immediate repairing and make the sluice gates workable."

Banik added to inform that copies of the memorandum have been sent to Executive Engineer, Water Resources, Cachar division and Executive Engineer Irrigation, Cachar division as well for immediate response to their demands.