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Assam has misplaced 4.27 lakh hectares of land within the final 70 years. This land was misplaced to not border disputes or encroachments, however to its lifeline — the Brahmaputra. The mighty, mercurial river eats away massive swathes of land yearly.
Among the many many assignments as an Assistant Commissioner of a flood-prone district in Assam, I get the chance to go to and consider the extent of this erosion. On one June morning, together with Assam State Catastrophe Administration Authority (ASDMA) officers, we made our method by rugged roads saddled between lush, inexperienced paddy fields, typical of rural Assam. On this journey of over two hours ranging from the district headquarters in Nagaon, we descended from paved, metalled roads of the freeway to the kaccha roads of the inside. Solely a heavy automobile just like the Mahindra Bolero might negotiate the latter half of the terrain.
On the banks of the Kopili river, one of many main tributaries of the Brahmaputra, the Gaon Burha (village headman) pointed us to the bottom just under — huge chunks of rock, soil and dirt had been being swept away by the regular currents of the river. A yr in the past, the river financial institution was about 10 metres from the place we had been standing. We interviewed the landowner. As soon as upon a time, all of it was his, he stated.
The financial institution reverse was more and more getting uncovered. In a method, the river’s course was barely getting displaced in direction of our aspect of the financial institution. The ‘uncovered’ areas had been beneath the river until not too long ago, and are subsequently, not myadi or personal lands as per income information. The irony is that these ‘new’ lands are actually authorities or khas lands. Thus, as extra myadi land will get swept away, extra state-owned khas lands emerge. Whereas we now have the numbers for land misplaced to erosion, the info on how a lot khas land is getting added is patchy at greatest.
It is a phenomenon taking part in out by the state. Essentially the most spectacular instance is, after all, the erosion of Majuli, the world’s largest riverine island. It has misplaced practically half its space within the final 50 years. However there are lots of extra situations of much less seen erosion, of land quietly getting washed away by the river.
Whereas the nationwide narrative is largely-focused on the floods in Assam, it’s this erosion by the river techniques that’s masquerading because the silent killer. Whereas a mix of pure and man-made elements have exacerbated the disaster, it’s the affect on individuals’s lives that could be a explanation for consternation.
As individuals get uprooted from their lands, they lose an important asset they’ve. The landlessness makes them weak and they’re compelled emigrate. Many of those displaced households now ‘encroach’ on authorities lands. A few of them transfer into the protected forests or wildlife sanctuaries. Whereas undocumented migration has been a historic drawback in Assam, right now a big fraction of the encroachments are additionally by households, uprooted by erosion.
The Authorities of Assam has taken a number of steps over time to cope with this huge humanitarian and ecological disaster. Geo-bags, geo-tubes and porcupines dot massive stretches of flood-prone banks throughout the state. In 2015, the Assam Legislative Meeting handed a decision to recognise river erosion as a ‘catastrophe’ beneath State Catastrophe Response Fund (SDRF) and NDRF pointers. The state authorities’s income and catastrophe administration division has notified erosion as a state particular catastrophe in 2015.
The brand new Authorities Land Coverage of 2019 has given choice for settlement and allotment of land to indigenous households, pushed landless by erosion. Curiously, the Assam Land Requisition and Acquisition Act, 1964 gives for acquisition and requisition of land for anti-erosion works and for settling of households displaced by erosion.
In the long run, the technique must deal with erosion mitigation measures reminiscent of growing the vegetation cowl round erosion-prone banks by native and endemic plant varieties. This must be augmented by individuals’s participation and capability constructing to improvise agriculture practices and land husbandry. For example, farmers could be incentivised to cowl the barren soil with crop residue, which improves soil retention. Soil stabilisers and tackifiers may also be appeared into. Even smaller networks of canals and verify dams could be thought of relying upon environmental and engineering feasibility. Worldwide cooperation and data switch will play a key position right here.
Whereas the measures have simply begun, it’s prudent that better focus is given on this difficulty. The catastrophe administration paradigm round erosion must be built-in into the broader framework of river and land conservation. Erosion of prime agricultural and homestead land will proceed to be one of many key, pressing challenges dealing with the event administration of the state — and that could be a actuality we should handle prior to later.
(The author is an IAS Officer at the moment posted as Assistant Commissioner in Nagaon district of Assam. Views are private.)
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