Assam: Tangible measures to tackle landslides missing

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: As the stereotype yearly routine goes, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) has issued a notice to the district administrations to identify landslide-prone areas and take remedial measures. No tangible strategy to solve the menace permanently is in sight.

This year, the ASDMA has identified eight districts - Kamrup (M), Kamrup, Karbi Anglong, West Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao, Cachar, Hailakandi and Sribhumi - as landslide prone. The ASDMA has appealed to the district administrations to make provisions for safe shelter for families in the event of landslides. It has also appealed to the people staying in landslide-prone areas to move to safer areas on their own.

A few years ago, the district administration identified as many as 366 spots as landslide-prone on the hills in and around Guwahati. However, the administration has neither shifted the people living in those landslide-prone areas to safer areas nor has it regulated norms against random hill cutting and construction work in hill areas.

According to a survey conducted a few years ago, 77 areas were identified as landslide-prone in the Sunsali area, 30 in the Hengrabari area, 40 in the Noonmati area, 37 in the Kharghuli area, 30 in the Khanapara area, 25 in the Kahilipara, 30 in the Narangi area, etc.

Instead of preventive measures, what is seen in these areas is more earth-cutting and construction of more houses. The ASDMA has just appealed to the people living in these landslide-prone areas to shift themselves to safer places of their choice during the rainy period to reduce their vulnerability to landslides. The fact, however, remains that nobody wants to move to safer areas, come what may.

According to sources, the reasons behind areas remaining landslide-prone on the hills in and around Guwahati are unregulated human activities, including indiscriminate hill cutting, unauthorized construction and poor drainage systems. What the authorities need to do is to prepare standard guidelines for landslide management and mitigation for the capital city, avoiding any construction work or human settlement in high-risk landslide areas, rehabilitating such people to elsewhere permanently, correcting slopes identified as vulnerable to landslides in advance to avoid any slope failure, etc.

 Also Read: Guwahati: Landslides occurred in Maligaon hilltop colony area

Also Watch: