GUWAHATI, Oct 19 � Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today described the problems of flood and erosion the main problems of the State. He called upon the experts to evolve strategies to deal with the chronic problems of flood and erosion caused by the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. Only through embankments the problem of flood cannot be solved, he said.
He was inaugurating a day-long workshop on flood and erosion management of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries organised by the Water Resources Department of the State at the Panbazar premises of the Institution of Engineers here.
The depth of the riverbeds should be deepened, as the siltation of the riverbeds has aggravated the flood and erosion problems of the State. The State has already lost over four lakh hectares of its valuable land since the fifties and it cannot afford to lose more land to the Brahmaputra and the other rivers, he maintained. The braiding nature of the rivers, particularly that of the Brahmaputra, is to be controlled and reclamation of land is the need of the hour in view of the rise in population and pressure on land, he said and regretted that the State Government has not been able so far to fully rehabilitate those families affected by erosion.
He told the gathering the water resources engineers and other experts that the State Government has been mounting pressure on the Central Government to extend assistance to the erosion-affected families.
Maintaining that without dredging the riverbeds, the problems of flood and erosion could not be solved, the Chief Minister said that the State Government has taken the matter of deepening the depth of the river seriously. In this respect, he referred to the success attained by Bangladesh.
