Guwahati: Two years after Gauhati High Court’s direction to convert the 72 km Haladhibari-Besamari levee into a road-cum-dyke, people of Majuli in Upper Assam’s Jorhat district are yet to see it materialise.
Manoj Kumar Borah, a resident of Majuli who has been fighting a legal battle for the protection of the river island, told the media here that after the court’s order the public works department of Assam government had prepared a detailed project report and had submitted it to the DoNER ministry.
“Since the project is yet to receive the DoNER ministry’s approval, people of Majuli continue to face hardship in communication as well as the threat of erosion from the Brahmaputra,” he said. Borah had appealed to Union sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal to take the initiative of getting the project approved from the DoNER ministry.
The court’s direction was based on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Borah at Gauhati High Court in 2010. Borah said the Brahmaputra Board, an autonomous statutory body responsible for checking erosion in Majuli, had spent Rs 178 crore between 2003 and 2014 to check erosion but in vain.
“Erosion continues making dozens of families homeless every year,” he said. He added that Union minister water resources minister Uma Bharti had informed the Lok Sabha a few days ago that a probe was under way, based on some complaints, regarding the misappropriation of funds in the Brahmaputra Board while implementing projects to curb erosion in Majuli, The Telegraph reported.
“Official figures say altogether 9,566 families have lost their homes during erosion in Majuli between 1969 and 2011. Of these, only 500 families have been rehabilitated. The number must have crossed 12,000 if we add the homes that were lost in erosion after 2011,” Borah said.
In 2013, Borah, through an RTI, had sought to know from Jorhat district administration whether the district had some vacant government land to rehabilitate homeless people who were living on the dyke# for years, only to get a negative answer. In 1950 the total land area of Majuli was 1245.12 square km which has shrunk to 480 square km as of today.
Borah said that the Centre does not help families in Majuli that are affected by the river erosion because the 13th finance commission, which has covered from 2010 to 2015, does not have provision to help victims of river erosion although it has provisions to help families affected by sea erosion. He urged the BJP members of parliament from Assam to raise their voice so that the 14th finance commission gives provision# to help the families affected by river erosion. “In addition, what makes us worried is that all the top posts of the Brahmaputra Board, including the chairman’s, are vacant. How will it be able to work properly?” Borah questioned. Gauhati High Court will give its final verdict on Borah’s PIL on January 28, 2016.