GUWAHATI, June 21 - Desiltation and cleaning of the Bondajan Beel is in progress and the work is expected to be completed within a week.
The Mechanical Division of the Water Resources Department is engaged in the work for the last 10 days under a Guwahati Development Department (GDD)-sponsored scheme.
�Removal of water hyacinth, garbage and silt has been started from the Maria�s Public School bridge point to the outfall in the Brahmaputra river. Altogether 35 daily workers have been engaged and two iron barge-mounted chain excavator and a chain-mounted excavator PC130 have been deployed in three different locations for desiltation and cleaning of the 3.5 km long water-body. We have covered 2.8 km in the cleaning work till date,� said a Water Resources Department (WRD) official on Sunday.
�The garbage thus generated has been dumped at a low-lying area near the beel and it will be destroyed later by using some medicine or by burning it,� he added.
The water from the south eastern part of Guwahati falls into the Silsako Beel first and then runs into the Brahmaputra through the Bondajan channel. The desiltation and cleaning of the beel has been carried out under �Mission Flood Free Guwahati.�
Guwahati has for long been suffering from urban floods caused by heavy rainfall in its catchment area. The situation gets aggravated with the inflow of the Meghalaya stormwater that passes through the drainage system of Guwahati city and ultimately percolate to the Brahmaputra.
The government has taken several major schemes to mitigate the disaster caused by artificial flood in Guwahati.
The Guwahati Development Department has, during the current year, come up with six major schemes to mitigate the intensity of artificial floods in the city. The six schemes include � cleaning and desilting of the Pamohi channel, Borsala Beel, Silsaku Beel, Bondajan Beel, Deepor Beel and the NBCC drain.
