Floods from Meghalaya

The Assam Chief Minister is one hundred percent correct when he says that the massive destruction of hills inside Meghalaya on the western side of the GS Road between Jorabat and Khanapara is responsible for unprecedented flash floods in the southern part of Guwahati city. Any layperson will testify that indiscriminate earth-cutting in the past several years has led to the total disappearance of the pristine hills inside Meghalaya. While rainwater used to flow down through the natural gradient, the indiscriminate destruction has caused severe and irreparable damage to the hills, leading to the total disappearance of the natural gradient. The result has been that a large volume of earth now flows down with the rainwater towards the lower side, which is the Khanapara area inside Assam. The National Highways Authority of India also had a role in it by way of constructing about two dozen culverts on the National Highway stretch from Khanapara and Jorabat, through which the water and slush from the Meghalaya side flows into the Assam side. According to an official survey, there are at least eleven such culverts between the approach to the particular private university and the approach road to SIPRD at Khanapara, through which a huge volume of mud and water comes down, which has been causing havoc at Juripar and Panjabari. A simple survey will reveal that the destruction of hills inside Meghalaya along the GS Road from Khanapara to Byrnihat has been going on unabated. Any sensible person will ask why the Meghalayan government is permitting this or why it has remained mysteriously silent on this issue. In addition to the destruction on the Meghalaya side, one must also point out the encroachment that has taken place in the hills under Khanapara Reserve Forest. This encroachment by hundreds of families has also led to massive topsoil erosion, thus contributing to the increasing flash floods in the southern part of the city. The Dispur MLA, on the other hand, has pointed at increasing encroachment in the Amchang reserved forest, which too, according to him, has further aggravated the city’s flood situation.