GUWAHATI, Sept 12 � While much attention has been drawn by the havoc wrought by the Gai and the Jiadhal rivers in Dhemaji district, the devastation caused by the Brahmaputra and the Simen in the Jonai and Sisibargaon Development Blocks of the district have gone unnoticed.
According to Lohit Goswami of the voluntary organisation Rural Volunteer Corps (RVC), which has been rendering assistance to the people affected by the Simen and the Brahmaputra, the Simen has affected the people of Rongpuria, Rongpuria Hajong, Lakhimipar, Lakhmisuti Boro, Chengajan Bamgaon, Ghotpara, No-4 Chengajan Majorbari etc villages in the Simen Chapori area.
Around 1,000 people belonging to around 164 families have been displaced by the river in August this year. Again, it affected 17 families of No 1 Harinathpur, No 2 Bargaon, Ghotpota etc villages in the first week of the current month, Goswami said.
While 40 families have shifted to the Lakhimpuria part of the Simen Reserved Forest, rest of the families have been settling in the highland areas in and around their respective villages. The Government has provided gratuitous relief to these families but it is yet to take any step to rehabilitate these people, he said.
The Simen, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, along with the mighty river, is causing maximum erosion. The river started changing its course in 2006. It accelerated this process in 2009, and this year, it has widened its new course. It is now flowing about 1.5 km away from its original course, said the leading RVC activist.
He further informed that the river has affected a total of around 181 families in the process, within a period of 20 days this year, in a 7-km-long stretch, between Rongpuria and Simenmukh. It has widened its course by around 500 metres on its left bank in this stretch and by around 300 metres on its right bank in the Simenmukh area, Goswami said.
The Brahmaputra with its erosion is also affecting nearly one lakh people belonging to around 20,000 farmer families under the two development blocks of Sisibargaon and Jonai, said a memorandum submitted by the Ganatantric Nagarik Surakshya Mancha, a network of flood and erosion-affected people of these areas. It also expressed the apprehension that the Bogibeel Bridge over the Brahmaputra by constricting the river course by over 4 km, will worsen the situation.
While visiting the Simen erosion-affected areas of No 1 Rongpuria village under the Simen Chapori Gaon Panchayat (GP), this correspondent saw the ferocity of the Simen. The river has eroded away a vast area in and around this village to make out space for its new course. According to the locals, the river started the process of changing its course from Silikhaguri Bokajan area, about 8 km north of No 1 Rongpuria village.
Originally, the No 1 Rongpuria village was 3 km in length and 2 km in width. The river has affected around 100 families of the village by devouring their cropland and residential plots. About 95 per cent of these families are farmers and each of these families owned around 10 bighas of land on an average.