Letters to THE EDITOR: Godsend for Bangladeshis?

Godsend for Bangladeshis?

Heavy floods have hit many parts of the Barak Valley in Assam and as many as 70 NRC centres are under the deluge. It has been reported that the NRC update work at these centres have come to a grinding halt while there are reasons now to believe that the publication of the final draft of the NRC, which was set to be out on June 30, might be delayed. This is the signal emanating from both the State NRC Coordinator and Dispur.

Let us not forget that it is in the Barak Valley, with districts such as Hailakandi and Karimganj, one can find any number of illegal Bangladeshis. Such illegal Bangladeshis are not any floating population in such districts. They are now permanent residents of Assam, who are staying in our State as illegal immigrants and whose number is swelling by the day. Many of these might have been able to enter the first draft of the NRC that was out on the midnight of December 31, 2017. These people are trying their best to get their names registered in the final draft of the NRC by any means.

So, it seems to me that these rains and floods are a Godsend for such illegal immigrants and their political patrons because if there is any delay in the publication of the final draft of the NRC, and if more such floods hit the State which is very likely as it happens every year, there is every scope for such people to evolve different 'creative' means to enter the NRC and become Indian citizens, thus posing further threat to the natives of the State who have already been outnumbered in several parts of the State due to illegal immigration from Bangladesh.

This is a matter of great concern. But what to do? Even Mother Nature seems to be helpless in throwing them out at a time when our own votes-crazy politicians are determined to retain them!

Rakesh Baruah,

Tezpur.

Water Everywhere!

"Water, water everywhere but not a drop of water to drink." This is the reality for Guwahatians. In the first showers of the monsoon itself, many parts of Guwahati have remained submerged under water. We have the mighty Brahmaputra flowing alongside Guwahati. There is no dearth of water. However, many taps in the houses of the city remain dry in all seasons. What a contrast?

People in authority declare dates from time to time that water supply projects taken up about 10 years back to supply water to Guwahati would be commissioned. Taking advantage of the weak memory of people, the authority keeps shifting date after date for commissioning such projects without any accountability at all.

It is a basic principle to prepare activity schedules while taking up any project for implementation and a first step in project planning. From activity schedule, we come to know the Scheduled Start Date (SSD) and the Scheduled Completion Date (SCD) of a project as a whole. Total project schedule can be prepared in the form of a bar chart which comprises hundreds or thousands of activities. Or, a network can be developed with the help of PERT/CPM method or with the help of Primavera, a modern project management tool widely used throughout the world.

It is for sure that the agencies in charge of implementation of the said projects have prepared schedules adopting any one of the above methods for resource (manpower, material, machinery, time, effort and finance) planning to execute each and every activity and to monitor them accordingly. Constant monitoring of activities would help the executors to know the constraints and shortfalls. Constant monitoring and follow-ups would help the agencies take corrective actions to put any project back on rails if there is any. Ultimately, it would help them forecast the expected/anticipated completion date (ECD) of a project.

As citizens of a democratic country, we the people of Guwahati want to know the ECD as well as the constraints or hold-ups for delay in the completion of the said projects.

Prafulla Dowarah,

Rukminigaon, Guwahati.