GUWAHATI, July 12 - The Kamrup Metro District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) will start a three-month project �Door to Door Landslide Awareness Programme through Community Participation� from July 15.
The objectives of the project are to engage community for landslide vigil on landslide hazards, take non-structural risk mitigation measures at household level and intensify earlier campaigns.
A statement issued by the district administration said that sensitisation and landslide risk mitigation activities among vulnerable communities with their active participation on the landslide-prone hillocks of Guwahati will result in involvement and ownership of mitigation activities by the vulnerable communities.
Meanwhile, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) in coordination with DDMA of Kamrup Metro had initiated a systematic awareness campaign with participation of vulnerable communities covering 20 hillocks of Guwahati in the last two years. The first year�s programme included general campaigns with do�s and don�ts while the second year�s campaign had a cluster approach with focused group discussion with community participation.
To intensify earlier campaigns, ASDMA has designed this year�s campaign to go to 9,000 households with door-to-door campaigns in the landslide vulnerable communities across 20 hillocks in Guwahati city.
Thursday�s meeting was convened by Deputy Commissioner Biswajit Pegu with various stakeholders including ASDMA, Assam Police, Department of Forest, Department of Soil Conservation, SDRF, GMDA and NGOs.
According to the statement, there is frequent incidence of landslide in and around Guwahati city during the rainy season. The problem of landslides sometimes goes unnoticed or individual landslides are dealt with ad hoc response mechanism and the problem keeps on recurring every year. Scientific studies have also revealed that heavy rain during monsoon season followed by weak geological formation in the hills of the city, contributes for increasing landslide risks. Anthropogenic factors like haphazard expansion of the city, deforestation, encroachment on hill slopes, unscientific cutting and filling for construction also contribute towards high landslide risks, the statement said.