GOLAKGANJ, May 29 - About 20,000 villagers of South Salmara have lost their homes, fields, roads etc., as acres of land have been steadily swallowed by the Brahmaputra river. At places, the villagers are left with no place to retreat with rivers cutting down both sides of the area. It is during the cyclonic depressions which have been occurring in these parts with increasing frequency that the embankment in breaches occur.
The villager�s woes do not even end after the water recedes. The after effects of the floods continue for years. Unlike elsewhere in the State, where the soil is actually enriched by the silt left back by rivers, in the South Salmara the saline waters of the coastal rivers destroy it. Agriculture here being already impeded because of a monocrop yield, the villagers find it impossible to raise crops for at least five years after the flood. Mozammil Khan of Nisinpur area said that if the livestock manage to survive the floods, they die in the ensuing epidemics. The children fall prey to outbreak of gastroenteritis, diarrhoea and cholera that hit the area after the waters subside. He further added that the problem of breaches in embankments, causing untold misery to the villagers of South Salmara, is however, not a new one.
On the other hand, the Assam Bangladesh border in Dhubri district comprising a major char under Golakganj revenue circle, Binnachora, Berbhangi, Bishkhowa, Vogdanga, Nalia, Sonahat, Kanuri, Kedarkadda, Gaikhowa and Lakhimari are the worst affected areas of flood and erosion. In the last five decades, people of these areas have suffered extensively with heavy loss of lives and property.
Asok Kumar Roy Prodhani, social worker of Golakganj area said that the constituency is the worst affected area in Dhubri district. The constituency has lost 15,617 hectares of land and 60,000 people were rendered homeless from 1988 to 2010. The concerned department has failed to take proper steps to rehabilitate the border area people affected by erosion thereby leaving them in an insecure state.
