All schemes before monsoon: Sarma

Guwahati flood mitigation

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 13: With the monsoon round the corner how long the Guwahati Development Department (GDD) Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma make the residents of Guwahati live in a fool’s paradise with the assurance that all the flood mitigation programmes (FMPs) taken up in Guwahati will be completed before the monsoon? 

Replying to a question from AGP MLA Phani Bhushan Choudhury, Sarma informed the State Assembly of the present state of flood mitigation programmes (FMPs) taken up in Guwahati. The minister’s reply has revealed that the progress of FMPs in Guwahati is abysmally dismal. In fact, the reply from the minister has cut a sorry picture of the flood mitigation programmes currently underway in Guwahati, being projected as the Gateway to South East Asia.

According to the minister, while as many as six schemes taken up by Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) in the city are yet to be completed, only 20 per cent works of the Rs 97.92-lakh scheme for improvement of LGBI Airport taken up by the State Water Resource Department is completed.

The PWD, according to the minister, took up 53 schemes and 13 of them are still to be completed. The worst as revealed from the minister’s reply is that 58 of the 59 schemes for cleaning, de-silting and maintence of drains in the city have just been started. One of the 59 schemes could not be started as the department failed to get any contractor interested for it even after the fourth bidding.

However, a seemingly happy-go-lucky minister told the House on Tuesday that all the FMP works in the city would be completed before the monsoon even as the track records the departments do not buttress such a statement. Can he? Guwahatians just need to wait and watch!