EDITORIAL
Post flood problems in Assam — HN Das
Flood in Assam this year has been so severe that it will be a stupendous task to rehabilitate the victims. Two months after the water had receded some people are still staying in shacks on roads, embankments, hillocks and other safer areas. The dimension of the problem can be caused from fact that flood had affected 1,21,73,964 people in an area of 28,46,979 hectares of 10,425 villages. Quite a number of these people have now returned to their damaged houses. A total of 6,97,117 people had originally taken shelter in 702 officially recognised camps. But there were 4,62,360 people in 386 camps till something ago. An all party meeting had suggested gratuitous relief for all the people who lost their houses and crops for six months till the next crop is harvested. That will cost Rs 220 crore, if not more.
Reconstruction of 4,95,343 fully damaged houses will cost Rs 493.34 crore. Another Rs 969 crore will be required for the 19,38,049 partly damaged ones. But reconstruction has become normal and the victims move out of the temporary shelters to their own villages or to new rehabilitation sites.The road length affected is 622 kms of national highways, 136 kms of State roads, 461 kms of major district roads, 2627 kms of other roads and 504 bridges. Out of these PWD roads and bridges alone will cost Rs 514.25 crore to repair.
Agriculture has been badly affected. The total crop area damaged is 12,47,845 hectares. Besides 50,375 heads of milch, draught and plough cattle were lost. The Agriculture department has demanded Rs 989.21 crore for restoration of damages while the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary department has asked for Rs 109.23 crore. The restoration of damaged fisheries is estimated to cost Rs 34.39 crore. A new schemes for “living with flood” has been prepared this time which it is proposed to construct raised platforms and open type halls for shelter in 2,479 Gaon Panchayats. This will cost Rs 1,000 crore.Taking into account all the other sectors the total fund requirement is assessed at nearly Rs 7,000 crore. It will be a well nigh impossible task to identify funds of such magnitude. Assam’s share in the Calamity Relief Fund for five years (2000-05), under the Eleventh Finance Commission’s dispensation, is Rs 560.81 crore. A major portion of it has been exhausted and only Rs 123.36 crore is available for 2004-05. Out of this the Union Government’s share is limited to Rs 92.52 crore. Already the first instalment of Rs 46.26 crore has been released to the State. Moreover, for the first time an amount of Rs 55 crore has been allocated to Assam from the National Calamity Contingency Fund (NCCF) recognising the severity of the disaster. All this is meant for rescue and relief only.
For restoration and rebuilding plan funds will have to be drawn upon. But Assam’s Annual Plan allocation for 2004-05 is only Rs 1,795 crore. The major portion of this is tied up in different items of expenditure and cannot be diverted. The amounts which can be utilised are under Indira Awas Yojana, SGYP and other rural development schemes and programmes. For Bihar Union government has made an additional amount of Rs 400 crore available under the Indira Awas Yojana during the current year as an additionality to the Annual State Plan so that it can be utilised for construction of houses for the flood affected people. Assam is yet to obtain such additional funds. It is also doubtful whether MLAs, whose constituencies are not flood affected, will allow such funds to be diverted to flood affected constituencies.The Union Finance Minister has released an adhoc amount of Rs 200 crore as ways and means advance to Assam Government. This is subject to adjustment on receipt of the recommendations of the Central team which visited the State. After inspecting the flood affected areas they must have submitted their assessment of the actual requirement of funds from different sources. But whatever amount the Central team may recommend now has to come out of NCCF. The problem is that the total corpus of the NCCF for the entire country is only Rs 500 crore during 2004-05. Under these circumstances the Union Government will have to make special arrangement of funds for Assam.
Several issues need attention in this connection. While the available funds are not sufficient for relief and rehabilitation there is a suspicion, given vent to particularly by the local vernacular media, that whatever money is allotted will never be fully or properly utilised. A substantial portion will be siphoned off by unscrupulous politicians, bureaucrats and contractors. Then there is the question of restoration of structural damages. These include roads, buildings, embankments and others. These will have to be rebuilt and repaired. In the case of drainage and embankment schemes, however, it will be better to await the report of the Central Task Force, appointed specially at the behest of the Prime Minister, to go into the short, medium and long term measures for flood protection. If the existing structures are repaired and rebuilt in accordance with the old specifications now these may become redundant after the Task Force report. New structures will probab! ly be recommended by the Task Force.When the biggest known flood occurred in the sub-continent October, 1968 I happened to be the Deputy Commissioner of the eastwhile united Goalpara district with headquarters at Dhubri. A part of my district was also affected. But there was colossal loss of human life and property in North Bengal and in the northern districts of present Bangladesh. I had suggested at that time that for the sake of transparency the agency for relief operation should be the Panchayats. But this has not yet been done.
In regard to the control of the Brahmaputra by constructing dams in the Himalayas, which is a comparatively young mountain range and extremely prone to seismic activity, I had opposed the proposal to build huge dams along with hydel power stations costing Rs 35,000 crore as proposed by the Brahmaputra Board. The recent fear of bursting of dams on the Tsangpo river (main branch of the Brahmaputra), about which China had issued a warning to India, should deter any attempt to implement the Board’s project. It should be borne in mind that the two largest earthquakes in human history, those of Guwahati-Shillong of June 12, 1897 and Arunachal (then NEFA) of August 15, 1950, occurred in this region. These weighted 8.7 and 8.6, respectively, on the Reichter scale. Besides that the fear of environmental degradation by extra high votlage transmission lines of 800 or 1200kv is also reral.The loss of national wealth and income due to this year’s flood in Assam has been immense. The loss of human life also has been huge, being 251. Never before so many persons died in one year because in Assam most people are accustomed to flood. They can always swim across or transport themselves by small boats and banana plant rafts which are kept ready during the flood season. Those who survived the floods need massive assistance. It is, however, doubtful whether they will get justice in a situation which has been complicated by wide spread corruption, inefficiency and uncertainty about projects and resources.
(The writer is former Chief Secretary, Assam)
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