GUWAHATI, Aug 5 - The State�s Soil Conservation Department is in the process of finalising an action plan to prevent erosion in the city hills and arrest instabilities in the slopes which trigger landslides.
Official sources said over 200 vulnerable sites, covering 17 hills in the city, will be brought under the action plan which is being prepared with technical expertise from IIT, Guwahati.
Attempts were made by the Soil Conservation Department to take measures in the landslide-prone city hills even last year, but it could not go ahead due to financial constraints.
The action plan being prepared of late will include measures like plantation drives (including sowing of fast-growing grass, creepers and herbs), setting up of silt chambers to collect mud and other debris so that they do not clog drains, construction of stairs to reduce velocity of water flowing down the hills, retaining walls at feasible locations, etc.
There are also plans to use special blocks to revamp the roads in the hills. �These special blocks will ensure that a portion of the flowing water permeates the soil and absorbed by the hills,� the official said.
Along side, other departments like the PWD and Water Resources will take measures to supplement the effort which is being planned at the initiative of the district administration.
Over a dozen landslides have been reported in the city hills this year alone, resulting in the death of at least four persons.
As part of immediate measures, the administration has declared a number of houses in the vulnerable areas as unsafe and has sealed them.
The growing instability of the city hills have been blamed on human settlements and hill cutting.