Help Assam tackle floods
While the nation’s attention is almost completely focused on exploding coronavirus numbers, the Chinese threat and the ongoing political drama in Jaipur, Assam has been ravaged by devastating floods, with the rising Brahmaputra waters leaving vast stretches of Guwahati submerged. Twenty-eight of Assam’s 32 districts have been badly hit, and the flood waters have affected at least 40 lakh people, with the death toll rising to 76 by Friday evening. But not only has the Centre barely taken note of the calamity (despite the state being ruled by the BJP), besides some anondyne messages of commiseration, most of our national media haven’t taken note either.
For Assam and the Northeast, of course, it’s nothing new to be off the radar. On Thursday, the All Assam Students Union reiterated that the floods be declared a “national calamity”, noting that successive Central and state governments failed to take effective steps to tackle what is an annual event. AASU also said when it comes to Assam’s resources, the Centre says they belong to the nation, but when it comes to problems, the state is virtually left to fend for itself. This is a familiar complaint, more so in eastern India. The Brahmaputra’s massive erosion in Dhemaji, Dibrugarh and North Lakhimpur districts are posing a serious threat to farmland as well as villages on the mighty river’s banks, and the state’s two worst-hit districts are Dhubri and Barpeta. Besides threatening lives and livelihoods, animals at Kaziranga and other reserves, which have been submerged, are also at huge risk. The good thing is that the “highlands” erected at Kaziranga recently worked well, enabling many animals to take shelter there from flood waters.
Besides Assam, Bihar too faces a huge flood threat, with water levels in the Kosi, Bagmati, Kamala Balan, Mahananda, besides the Ganga, rising due to heavy rains in Nepal’s Terai. On Thursday, parts of a bridge that cost Rs 263 crores collapsed a month after its opening, though the state government claims it was safe and only an approach road was damaged. With elections approaching and the state under total lockdown, chief minister Nitish Kumar faces a major challenge.