A CORRESPONDENT
LAKHIMPUR: The Dhemaji district unit of All Assam Students' Union has reiterated its demand to the State government to construct the unplugged portion of the Jiadhol River embankment completely within this lean season. In this connection, Dhemaji district unit AASU president Dipak Kumar Sarmah and general secretary Kalyan Gogoi have called upon the Dhemaji Division of Water Resources Department (WRD) to initiate immediate steps.
Notably, the ravaging flood caused by Jiadhol River, which is regarded as the 'Sorrow of Dhemaji', breached its embankment, stretching from Tekjuri Barman Gaon to Kumatiya Railway Bridge, at Dihiri Chapori in 2007. In that year, the flash flood ravaged two villages Kekuri Chapori and Dihiri Chapori. Since then the embankment has remained unplugged and the river began to flow through the breached portion of the embankment changing its original course. As a consequence of the unplugged embankment, the flood caused by the river has severely hit a larger area under Paschim Dhemaji covering Jiadhol, Chamarajan, Naruwa Than, Ghuguha, Batghoriya, Butikor, Jiadhol Chariali and many other villages of Ghilamora area under Dhakuakhana subdivision of Lakhimpur district every year. Since 2007, the flood caused by the river has eroded away an extensive stretch of the embankment, covering almost 8kms, along with the residential houses of a number of families living in various villages under the mentioned areas in the following years. In the past years, the flood affected people, various organizations of Dhemaji, including AASU, raised consecutive demands to construct the eroded embankment for permanent resolve of perennial flood caused by Jiadhol River. In 2014, Dhemaji AASU conveyed a message to the government by constructing the embankment with the help of the flood affected people.
However, the Dhemaji Division of WRD has been implementing a scheme to construct the 2kms of that embankment— titled as 'Immediate Measure for Restoration of Jiadhol L/B Embankment from Barman Gaon to its downstream (Ch- 8200 to Ch- 10,200) with the investment of a fund amounting to Rs. 4,99,00,000 sanctioned in 2020-22 financial year.
Of late, the Dhemaji Division of WRD has adopted another scheme of around Rs. 49 crores to construct the rest portion of the eroded embankment of the river. It is known that the process for the scheme is in NIT (Notice Inviting Tender) stage at present. Against this backdrop, Dhemaji district unit of AASU has called upon the WRD to complete the official processes of the scheme at the earliest so that the implementation of the scheme could be completed before the next rainy season sets in.
On the other hand, a delegation of Dhemaji district unit of AASU, led by president Dipak Sarmah, general secretary Kalyan Gogoi, State committee organizational secretary Manturaj Baruah and executive member Rajib Gogoi, inspected the implementation work of the scheme titled 'Immediate Measure for Restoration of Jiadhol L/B Embankment from Barman Gaon to its downstream (Ch- 8200 to Ch- 10,200) on January 4. After the inspection, Dhemaji AASU alleged irregularities while implementing the scheme.
"The scheme has not been implemented as per estimate. The embankment has been constructed with sand without removing the sandy layer of the ground. We want to clear that the implementation of the scheme must be as per estimate. Each and every rupee of the fund sanctioned for the construction of the embankment must be utilized well. The Dhemaji Division of WRD must provide relief to the flood affected people from the fear of imminent flood in the next rainy season. We will not tolerate any misappropriation of fund while implementing the scheme," Dipak Sarmah and Kalyan Gogoi said in a statement.
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