Washed Out Of Sight

Sitting in Guwahati, tucked away in the remote Northeastern part of India, I "enjoy" watching24-hour television news channels for the sheer trivialization of news and what they have managed to bringabout. The "breaking news" range from a model getting killed in a freak accident when she is hit bya glass pane falling from the 24th (or is it 48th?) floor of a luxury hotel to the first monsoon showers andthe water-logging in the streets in Delhi and Mumbai.

Indeed, models and page three types are a staple diet on the channels and I have no bones to pick on thatsince the news channels also need to survive commercially. What I am amazed at is the sheer ignorance and"neglect" that these channels and, indeed, even the "national" print media display aboutevents and happenings in distant regions like the Northeast.

Take the game of "Waiting for and tracking the Monsoon."

While everyone rightly concentrates on the Monsoon's arrival in Kerala, no one has really bothered to findout or report in detail the havoc that rains create in the seven states of the region every year, startingend-April

Consider the statistics:

• 18 of Assam's 23 districts routinely come in the grip of floods, some of them like Dhemaji and NorthLakhimpur remaining under water for nearly three months.
  
   
• Road communication in hill states like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram remains disrupted due tolandslides brought about by torrential rains.
  
  
• Some districts like Lohit in Eastern Arunachal Pradesh are known to be rendered inaccessible by road forclose to three months.
  
  
• The civil authorities get worried over the inevitable outbreak of epidemics. Food shortage becomes acuteas the floods destroy most of the standing crop.
  
  
• Several stretches of National Highways 31, 37 and 52, which also link rest of the north eastern states toAssam get washed away.
  
  
• Every year at least three million people in this land of 3.5 crore people get hit by floods and rains.
  
  
• Over two lakh hectares of standing crop gets destroyed every year.
  
  
• For the last five years, at least between 40 to 50 people have got killed every year in variousflood-related incidents.
  
  
• By the Centre's own estimates Assam's loss on account of floods in the last two decades has been assessedat Rs 1400 crore.

But mere figures do not convey the extent of misery that the people undergo every year between June andSeptember.

Take the case of north Assam's Darrang district, which is normally less flood-prone than several otherdistricts in the state. This year several areas have come under flood waters. When the water comes rushing inat dead of night, people like Hari Nath, a lower division clerk in the state PWD, do not know how to cope withthe adversity. "Waters rose chest high and submerged everything that we had," he rues, sitting at arelief camp along with seven of his family members. For three weeks, Nath and family stayed in a makeshiftrelief camp. Now, he is trying to rebuild his life. He laments absence of an early warning system in the statethat boasts of a full-fledged flood control department and a cabinet minister to head it.

Post-floods, too, there is no respite.

Look at what happened to a farmer Balen Pegu in Assam's most flood-prone district, Dhemaji. As I wentvisiting, Pegu was sitting disconsolately in front of what was once his house. As he cast his eye around him,he could see the paddy field that belongs to his family under knee deep slush and sand. The sun was beatingdown relentlessly. Pegu and his family of six had barely survived the unprecedented floods in the Brahmaputrabut the future looked bleak and the struggle for survival, uphill. Pegu, a small-time farmer who eked out hisliving by cultivating a small patch of land did not have a clue as to what he would do for a living inaftermath of the floods.

The waters of the rampaging Brahmaputra had receded, but that had only brought about a flood of problems.Since miles and miles of roads had disappeared and several bridges washed away, no vehicles could reach Pegu'svillage. When the area was flooded, the boats at least could bring in the essentials. In the dry season eventhat does not happen. "I do not know where my next meal is going to come from," Pegu had said. Andhe is not alone. Several thousand families in Dhemaji and the adjoining Lakhimpur district are routinely onthe verge of starvation. As the local MLA Dilip Saikia observes: "Every year floods ruin the people inmore ways than one. While the immediate danger is of water-borne diseases spreading to a vast section of thepopulation in absence of safe drinking water, the long-term problem is starvation deaths since no land in thearea remains suitable for cultivation."

This year the situation is no different. Already vast stretches of land in Dhemaji district are under water.Other four districts, Hailakandi, Karimganj, Kamrup and Nalbari are also flood-hit. Over three lakh people areeither homeless or are living in knee deep water. And we are still in the middle of June!

How many of our 24-hour news channels talked about these facts except putting them on the running scroll atthe bottom of the screen?

What then is the solution to the state's annual nightmare?  Several schemes have been tried over theyears but most of them have been ad hoc at best, despite the fact that Assam is perhaps the only state in thecountry which has a separate Flood Control Department and even a Cabinet minister to look after it.

The Centre, worried over the annual devastation, had set up the Brahmaputra Board, a statutory panel in1981. After years of deliberation, it prepared a master plan which suggested building two massivemulti-purpose dams on the Dehang and Subansiri rivers in Arunachal Pradesh, which constitute the Brahmaputraand smaller dams for other tributaries. At current estimates, it will need at Rs 25,000 crore to build the twomega dams.

Inevitably, politics and sheer apathy has ensured that the master plan is gathering dust. For 11 years, theBoard was without a chairman until it was revived in 1995 with appointments to some key posts. One of thefirst tasks that the rivitalised Board has taken up is the implementation of  Pagladia multi-purposeproject in lower Assam. The Rs 479 crore project is expected to save at least Rs 15 crore annually in flooddevastation.
 
Another set of figures: Nearly 70 per cent of the state's embankments running into a length of some 4,448 kmhave lost their capacity to prevent floods. Just strengthening these embankments would now require a massiveinflow of funds. Although floods have been an annual feature, there is very little planning done in initiatingpreventive measures. Even elementary steps like stocking up food grains for the monsoon season, is marked withindifference.

The biggest casualty of  recurring floods are the vital roads running all across north-east. Even here,the government, which receives large amounts of funds to repair the national highways, often diverts the moneyto other heads. This has left important national highways in a state of constant disrepair, hampering smoothcommunication. The northeast, which imports essential commodities worth almost Rs 1,500 crore per annum fromother parts of the country, is thus perpetually running short of supplies.  Prices in the region areperhaps the highest in the country which, in parts, is understandable for several companies like consumergiants HLL, Nestle and ITC, to name a few,  are some times forced to airlift their supplies to theregion. The ultimate sufferer is of course the ubiquitous common man. 

Although the Brahmaputra, known as the Borha Luit or the old red river -- or the Bor-noi meaning thebig river --  along with  several of its tributaries, routinely devastates several districts everymonsoon, its fury  is increasing by the year. Two reasons are being attributed for high floods: One,excess rainfall in the upper reaches of Arunachal Pradesh, the main catchment area and two, the rising riverbed due to excessive siltation in the mighty river.

The Met department in the northeast says rainfall in Arunachal Pradesh has been nearly 25 per cent higher thannormal for the past two years. Excessive rains, coupled with massive deforestation in the Arunachal hills havecontributed heavily to the frequent floods. The deforestation in the hills has also led to massive chunks ofsoil coming down to the plains during the monsoons every year leading to siltation.

According to engineers of  Assam's Flood Control department nearly 2730.8 crore tonnes of silt hasaccumulated in the Brahmaputra between 1950 and 1997. It was in 1950 that a major earthquake completelychanged the course of the river. Ever since then, the river bed near Dibrugarh in upper Assam has risen by asmuch as three metres.

As of now, there does not appear to be any immediate solution in sight for the perennial problem. The woes ofthe people in the northeast seem unending and the Brahmaputra is truly living up to its nickname: the"River of sorrow." And yet, on television we will endlessly keep discussing the arrival of the firstmonsoon showers in the metros and the subsequent water logging. The national newspapers will have themandatory photographs of stalled cars and railway tracks submerged under water in Mumbai. I am not angry atthis neglect; in fact I pity all those who cannot see beyond Delhi-Mumbai-Kolkata-Chennai-Banglore-Hyderabad,for their limited vision and reach.

Does any one ever discuss floods in the northeast? Does any one really care? If no one does, there is nopoint blaming the people of northeast for harbouring separatist tendencies.