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Floods, jumbo depredations ravage Lorua mouza

By Ron Duarah - 15 Sep 2010 12:00 AM GMT

DIBRUGARH, Nov 20 � The vast Lezai-Lorua-Gorudharia agricultural cluster is situated barely 15 kilometres west of the city under the Moran Legislative Assembly Constituency and the Dibrugarh West Revenue Circle. Collectively called the Lorua mouza, the area has been ravaged by floods for years.

To add to the woes caused by the surging waters of the Brahmaputra, Buri Dehing and Sessa rivers over the past decade or so, herds of wild elephants devour the major portion of the remaining paddy crops. The pachyderm menace takes a human toll too, and this year has been no different with one old woman dying after an elephant trampled her.

Prafulla Chandra Patra, a leading social worker and a former teacher of the area, pointed out that the lack of river embankments has caused the perennial cycle of floods in 42 villages since the last four decades. �All that we are asking for is the extension of the Brahmaputra embankment by seven kilometres and the Buri Dehing embankment by three kilometres, both to converge at the confluence of the Buri Dehing and the Brahmaputra.� He also mentioned the Dibrugarh Main Drain as another cause of the villagers� woes. This drain carries stormwater from the city and ends at the Sessa river. However, the absence of proper embankments causes a significant quantity of the stormwater to spill over to the paddy fields in the Lorua mouza.

He said it is a matter of deep regret that though the Moran LAC has a Congress MLA, the desired development work in the Lorua mouza has not taken place. As for elephant depredations in the area, the locals are sore that the civil administration and the Forest officials do nothing more than burst a few firecrackers in a vain attempt to frighten away herds of wild elephants. Asked what the locals would prefer, Bhupen Gogoi, a youth of the area, said they wanted an electric fence along the Medela reserve forest to confine elephants to their corridor for their annual migration.

Locals are of the view that with the BCPL (the company that is setting up the Gas Cracker project) planning to flush out the plant�s rainwater into the Sessa, the flood situation in the Lorua mouza may worsen. However, the fact is that rainwater from the entire Borboruah-Lepetkata area flows into the Sessa. What the people are noticing is a channelling of this free flow by the BCPL.

Patra says that the Dibrugarh Main Drain could be channelised in a manner that rain and storm water from the city flows into the Buri Dehing which is a much bigger river than the Sessa. He also demanded compensation for the flood-affected farmers and victims of the man-elephant conflicts in the area.

What Patra and others in Lorua are angry at is that neither the Dibrugarh civil administration nor the State Government are doing anything to mitigate the sorrows of about one lakh indigenous people. When the villagers come to the district headquarters to submit a memorandum, they are not treated well by the bureaucrats. As for the politicians, all they do is utter false promises which is helping no one, it is alleged.