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Jorhat reeling under flash flood

By Correspondent

JORHAT, June 28 � Along with the premises of several important offices of government departments and district-level courts more than 200 residential campuses were reeling under knee-deep floodwater at Tarajan, Choladhara, Dorongichuk, Chandan Nagar, Kushal Nagar and several other areas beside the busy roads like JB Road, Jail Road and Club Road, Royal Road here today morning as heavy rain lashed the urban localities.

Several connecting lanes of the town and market places in Lichubari, Rowriyah and many other places became impassable for elderly citizens as most of those unpaved lanes were inundated by ankle-deep water and the market places were filled with mud and silt, carried by the last night�s heavy rain.

Expressing serious concern over the unprecedented problems of flash-flood in the urban localities most of the locals said that rampant corruption in the construction of drains, unchecked encroachment in the rivulets like Tocklaijan and Tarajan at the heart of the town and the lack of adequate technical plan for the drainage constructions were the main reasons for such a major civic problem in Jorhat.

�On behalf of Sacetan Nagarik Mancha we have recently appealed the Deputy Commissioner to implement some measures to reduce the flash-flood in the town. Nothing has been done to check corruption in the drainage-construction in Jorhat,� said a retired educationist and veteran engineer Bhaba Chetia.

Along with Chetia several other elderly citizens said that the majority of the drains of the town were constructed so narrower that they cannot flush the heavy-rain water from the urban localities. According to them misappropriation of fund (allotted for drainage construction) and the technical loopholes left by the experts of municipal board and administration loomed the flash-flood problem larger in the town.

The massive encroachment near the Tocklaijan rivulet made it narrower in major portions at the heart of the town and therefore it is now unable to carry the large amount of storm-water that it carried few decades ago from the urban localities.

Though Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi assured of evicting all the illegal constructions on the Tocklaijan and Tarajan, the administration has been keeping the eviction drive pending for �some unknown reasons�.

�If the main canals of Tocklaijan, Tarajan and others remained narrower the problems of flash-flood will never be solved. The administration and the politicians should work for the greater interest of the town, not for the interest of encroachers,� said veteran civil engineer Chetia.

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