GUWAHATI, Oct 26 - The Purvashi Oil and Gas Ltd (POGL) Development Group, which has conceptualised the Project Profit Brahmaputra, has demanded that the high level committee formed by the Union government for management of the NE water resources should consider dredging of the Brahmaputra bed as a permanent solution to the flood and erosion problems caused by the mighty river.
CEO of the POGL Development Group PK Dutta, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has objected to the idea of insisting on setting up hydro-electric power projects in the region to solve its water-related woes. Such projects create more floods during the rainy season and draught in the dry season, Dutta said in his letter.
Dredging and reclamation not only brought permanent solution to flood and erosion, but enhanced productivity and resource utilisation which enhanced per capita income in the NE to the highest among the regions of the country in the pre-Independence era.
The British dredged the earthquake-damaged Brahmaputra in Nalbari and Barpeta immediately after the June 12, 1897 earthquake. This facilitated resumption of the navigation through the Brahmaputra and the problem of flood was also solved within the next two years, besides increasing the drainage capacity of the river.
But the embankments built by the State government since 1954, ignoring the suggestion of the Union government for simultaneous medium and long-term dredging to keep the capacity of the drainage channel intact, resulted in the wastage of over Rs 3 lakh crore of the tax payers� money and uprooting of 70 per cent of the indigenous people from their native places. Around five lakh hectares of the land in this narrow valley has also been lost to the river and places like Dibrugarh, Majuli and Palasbari have been exposed to the wrath of the river.
Dredging would provide the scope to reclaim a vast area lost to the river, by narrowing and deepening its course, besides providing a navigational channel, which is very much important for defence purpose too, said Dutta.