Chirang district administration holds flood preparedness meeting

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOKRAJHAR: The district administration of Chirang has decided to prepare its flood preventive and mitigation measures well in advance by holding a meeting with the heads of line departments and Circle Officers.

Presiding over the meeting as the chairman of the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), Chirang, held in the conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner's office at Kajalgaon, Deputy Commissioner Gautam Talukdar asked the heads of line departments and Circle Officers to prepare their flood contingency plans as per the Assam Disaster Management Manual 2015 and to submit the same to DDMA before March 15, 2021. He said, "In the last year, some parts of Chirang district were badly hit by the flood waters and erosion of Aei River and its tributaries. During that time we had to face many difficulties in dealing with the situation. Of course, we managed to overcome the situation smoothly with our joint effort. Therefore, from the experience of last year's flood, we should be more cautious this time while preparing our details action plans."

In this connection, he asked the officers present to review and examine their last year's experience for preparation of a better contingency plan for the current year. In the meeting, lauding the services rendered by some departments like Water Resources, PWD, Public Health Engineering, Health and Family Welfare, including paramilitary forces, he added, "They gave commendable and tremendous service during that crisis situation." He further asked the officers to visit the flood-prone areas to identify the vulnerable points prior to preparing their departmental flood contingency plans.

As such, officials of Krishi Vigyan Kendra and Agriculture department were advised by him to conduct awareness camp at their office premises in order to sensitize the farmers about the schemes available to be offered to them during and after the flood situation. Last year in Chirang district, around 24,000 population and 45 villages were affected due to flood while one died in drowning incident. The flood and erosion of River Aei and its tributaries had also caused damage to many infrastructures like roads, bridges, culverts and houses, and had inundated vast areas of agricultural lands during that time. Additional Deputy Commissioner Karmadev Brahma, DB Sonar, CO, SSB, Rabi Munda, CO, CRPF and Circle Officers of Bijni, Bengal and Sidli Revenue Circles were also present in the meeting.

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