Even as Assam is being ravaged by the successive waves of floods and erosion of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries, the state’s ambitious plan for setting up an early flood warning system is getting thwarted due to tardy flow of data from the Central Water Commission (CWC).
Installation of a warning system along with setting up rain gauzing stations in different parts of the state which are still unc overed appears to be the immediate objective of the gove rnment. Lack of data from the CWC has created major probl em for the water resources department in predicting flood s ituations on time and assessing situation in the aftermath. T he state revenue and disaster management department, is t rying to convince the Centre that if CWC does not share data relating to water, it would be very difficult to activate the advanced early warning system even when it is put in place. Till a few decades ago, floods in Assam were never thought of as a major disaster as they had a frequent repetitive pattern of visit, though countless lives were lost, houses, homesteads and cattle heads washed away every year. Being helpless at one stage the state government had to ask the people to learn to live with the floods. The refusal of the CWC to share water related data with the state is due to the past and current practice of viewing such information as being absolutely secret....
(News from Seven Sisters Post)
Installation of a warning system along with setting up rain gauzing stations in different parts of the state which are still unc overed appears to be the immediate objective of the gove rnment. Lack of data from the CWC has created major probl em for the water resources department in predicting flood s ituations on time and assessing situation in the aftermath. T he state revenue and disaster management department, is t rying to convince the Centre that if CWC does not share data relating to water, it would be very difficult to activate the advanced early warning system even when it is put in place. Till a few decades ago, floods in Assam were never thought of as a major disaster as they had a frequent repetitive pattern of visit, though countless lives were lost, houses, homesteads and cattle heads washed away every year. Being helpless at one stage the state government had to ask the people to learn to live with the floods. The refusal of the CWC to share water related data with the state is due to the past and current practice of viewing such information as being absolutely secret....
(News from Seven Sisters Post)
-Abakash Majuli
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