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Call to shelter urban poor under JNNURM

By Staff Reporter - 15 Sep 2010 12:00 AM GMT

GUWAHATI, Sept 5 � The State Government should undertake initiatives to provide shelter to the poor Guwahatians under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewable Mission�s (JNNURM�s) Basic Service to Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme to solve the city�s flash flood problem. This is the observation made by noted social worker Benudhar Barua.

He also suggested that the city should be provided with a storm water network connected with a major drain that can take away the city�s storm water to the Brahmaputra at a downstream site where the bed level of the Brahmaputra is suitably lower for the purpose.

Or else, the Bharalu phenomenon will continue to haunt the city forever. The Bharalu is provided with a sluice gate so as to prevent Brahmaputra backwater from entering the city through the rivulet, said Barua.

Barua, who was talking to this newspaper on the problem of flash flood, which has been making life miserable for the Guwahatians for the past over two decades, described the problem to be a man-made one.

An end to the practice of hill cutting and encroachment on the low-lying areas, particularly the wetlands and other water bodies, is a must to solve the problem once for all, he emphasized.

The Government of India has already allotted an amount of Rs 111.94 crore to the State to implement the BSUP for the period between 2005 and 2012. Timely execution of the programme would have enabled the State receive additional allocations from the Union Government and this would have made freeing a sizeable area of the city hills from encroachment, Barua asserted.

However, he said, there is scope to doubt the status of many of the encroachers of the city hills and water bodies as far as their land ownership is concerned. A sizeable section of these people have land in other parts of the State, Barua said.

He therefore suggested a detailed survey to identify the actual number of landless poor among these encroachers. Moreover, even in the case of the landless poor, the legal provisions that forbid cutting of the hill slopes should be strictly enforced if Guwahati is to survive.

The Guwahati Water Bodies (Preservation and Conservation) Act, 2008 should be implemented to save the water bodies of the city in its letter and spirit. For, this is also important for the solution of the flash flood problem of Guwahati, Barua said.

Encroachment on the city water bodies should be removed and their health should be restored. Widening and deepening of the city rivulets like the Bahini, Bharalu and Basistha are also important in this respect, he said.

The other major natural and man-made channels of the city like the Naojan, Juri and the Mora Bharalu should also be provided with their original width and depth, Barua said.

On providing the city with a network of effective storm water drains, he said that the original storm water drains of the city have been rendered ineffective by the encroachers. There is the need to provide the city with a network of storm water drains connected with a main drain in line with that of the Dibrugarh town.

Barua also opposed the Guwahati Development Department move to evacuate the Meghalaya storm water at Deepor Beel, warning that this will eliminate the State�s lone Ramsar site water body. The GDD may instead release the Meghalaya storm water at the Brahmaputra downstream of Ajara, he said.