Unified Water Management Authority To Manage Northeast Floods

Centre moves to form NEWMA

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Government of India (GoI) has decided to constitute a unified agency — the ‘North East Water Management Authority’ (NEWMA) — for effective flood management in the entire region. A bill will be introduced in the Parliament for setting up this authority. The decision to set up NEWMA has now been accepted by all the north-eastern States, informing this to the Assam Assembly, Water Resources Minister Keshab Mahanta expressed confidence that following the formation of NEWMA, the annual flood problems of the entire north-eastern region will be solved over a period of time.

He provided this information while giving his reply to an earlier resolution seeking recognition of the Assam flood as a national problem by the GoI and the need for an all-party delegation to pressurise the Central leaders in Delhi over the issue. The resolution was moved by Opposition legislators of the Congress, AIUDF, and also ruling party AGP MLA Brindaban Goswami in the previous Assembly session. They, however, withdrew their resolution after the Minister’s reply on Tuesday.

Dwelling on NEWMA, the Minister further said that in August 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Assam to check the flood situation in the State had expressed the need for the creation of such an authority. He also approved a fund of Rs 100 crore for studying the causes that lead to the annual flood situations in the Northeast. A high-level committee headed by the Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog has also been formed in this regard.

Since 2002, the GoI has been working on constituting such a central flood management authority for NE as the main rivers of the region have their origins in the neighbouring countries including China. Besides the main rivers of Assam also have an inter-State connection. But those initiatives then failed to bear fruits due to the opposition to such a move from the NE States, other than Assam, the Minister added.

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