Saving wetlands

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday made a very important statement in connection with protecting wetlands. Shah, in his capacity as North Eastern Council (NEC) Chairman, in fact asked the Assam government to prepare a concrete action plan to protect and rejuvenate the state's wetlands and increase their holding capacity so that those can act as storage reservoirs during floods. Such a statement from a Union Home Minister should have in fact come long ago. Such a concrete plan to protect and rejuvenate wetlands should have also come from the Assam government a long time ago. Unfortunately, successive governments have miserably failed to protect Assam's wetlands. The first assault on Assam's wetlands was made by the British from 1905 onwards when, after merging Assam with Eastern Bengal, opened up the province's wetlands and marshlands to settle hordes of Muslim peasants from Bengal. After Independence, successive Congress governments had, in the interest of votes, not only looked the other way when immigrant Muslims encroached upon the wetlands, but even gave land pattas to them in the sar areas. Guwahati too was once full of wonderful wetlands. But when the capital was hurriedly shifted from Shillong, the wetlands of the city were systematically wiped out because of lack of any perspective plan. Political parties too are to be blamed for encouraging encroachment on wetlands. In Guwahati, while most of the Barsola Beel and Sarusola Beel have been wiped out, it is now Silsako Beel and Bondajan wetland which are facing the same kind of rape. The worst case is of Deepor Beel, the only Ramsar Site of the Northeast, which has been pushed to the brink by greedy politicians, corrupt officers and unscrupulous traders and businessmen. While the present regime headed by Himanta Biswa Sarma has displayed some concern for saving the wetlands, the appeal of the Union Home Minister should now be considered the reason for taking drastic steps to not just evicting encroachers from the wetlands, but also restoring as much as possible the original area of the wetlands by cancelling permanent settlements and pattas. The Chief Minister should take this up on a mission mode and start with Deepor Beel, Silsako and Bondajan.