GUWAHATI, June 9 � Voluntary organisation Save Guwahati Build Guwahati (SGBG) has hailed the moves initiated by MGVK Bhanu, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, to free the famous wetland Deepor Beel of encroachment.
In a statement here, the voluntary organisation stated that its executive committee in its meeting held under the presidentship of its working president Krishna K Barua, also exhorted MGVK Bhanu to take bold steps to free the entire wetland from the clutch of the encroachers.
Deepor Beel, the lone Ramsar site wetland of the State, which has also been declared as a bird sanctuary by the State�s Forest Department considering its status as a habitat of various local species of birds and as a shelter for various migratory bird species, has a unique status in relation to the environment and ecology and economy and culture of the city.
The Deepor Beel with its unique resources and role in the sociocultural and economic life of the people today needs to be elevated in the true sense of the term to the status of a wetland of an international fame. It has the potential to emerge as a major destination for the domestic and foreign tourists. The only thing it needs is a concerted move to protect it and to develop it with that aim in view, said SGBG general secretary Satyen Doloi, while talking to this newspaper.
Doloi also informed that the meeting of the SGBG, which was attended by its founder president and present Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) chairman Dhiren Barua, former MLA Ajay Dutta, writer Kumudeswar Hazarika, among others, also pleaded for bold steps to protect the wetland from encroachers.
It also called for similar steps to check its environmental degradation. The practice of dumping municipal solid waste on the wetland and diverting the domestic and industrial waste waters to it should be stopped forthwith, demanded the SGBG executive committee members.
