Sonowal to take up issue of Adi Xatra with Uma

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, January 19: Adi Xatra in Barpeta district is on the verge of extinction with the ravening and mighty Brahmaputra is gobbling it up slowly but certainly. Erosion by the river is not unknown to the Centre and the state government, but for reasons best known to them they do little to protect the Xatra.

Union Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs (independent) Sarbanda Sonowal today scripted a record by becoming the first Union minister to have visited the area where the xatra is located. No Union minister ever visited the area. Sonowal had also visited the area as the president of the Assam state committee of the BJP.

Talking stock of the situation of the Xatra, Sonowal said that he would take up the matter with Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati, who is going to visit Assam from February 4 next. The matter, according to Sonowal, will be taken up with her during that visit.

In order to arrest erosion by the Brahmaputra and to protect the Xatra, the Centre had taken up a Rs 84–crore project in 2012. However, the project failed to see light of the day as neither Dispur nor New Delhi took any interest to protect the Xatra. The main works under that project were installation of geo–tubes and erection of porcupine spurs to stop further erosion. Had the project been implemented, the Xatra could have got a respite.    

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