GUWAHATI, Sept 24 - About 200 students of the city's Cotton College started a 24-hour fast from 4 pm today in front of the Nehru Park demanding a clear-cut statement from the State Government on its stand on the issue of mega dams.
Disclosing this, Bedabrata Gogoi of the Sachetan Cottonian Mancha, said that students of the College staying at its hostels and also belonging to the city, have been taking part in the fast to mount pressure on the State Government in support of the demand. The students taking part in the programme have resented the statement of All India Congress Committee general secretary Rahul Gandhi that mega dams are not anti-people.
This has made it mandatory on the part of the Assam Government to clear its stand on the mega dam issue, Gogoi said.
It needs mention here that the students of the College proposed to stage a demonstration on September 7 on which date the State's Minister for Power and Industry and Commerce Pradyut Bordoloi was supposed to come to the college to inaugurate the Manik Chandra Barua memorial national-level debating Competition organised by the college.
But the students refrained from that phase of the agitation as the minister did not come to the College to inaugurate the competition.
Later on, they staged a demonstration on September 20 against the mega dams and burnt the effigy of the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) on the College campus protesting the CMD's announcement to continue with the construction activities of the Lower Subansiri Hydroelectric Power Project.
