Assam CM asks officials to stay alert ahead of Bhutan releasing water from dam

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said the district administration has been put on alert ahead of Bhutan’s decision to release excess of water from the Kurichu dam.

“The Royal Government of Bhutan has informed us that tonight there will be an excess release of water from the Kurichu Dam. We have alerted our district administrations to remain vigilant and assist the people in every possible way in case the water breaches the Beki and Manas rivers”, Sarma tweeted.

Last month, nearly half a million people across 19 districts of the state were affected by the floods across the north eastern state. Barpeta, Dhubri, Dhemaji, Dibrugarh, Kokrajhar, Kamrup and Nalbari were among the affected districts as per the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA).

Bajali was the worst-affected district, affecting 2,67,253 people. In this district, 15,841 people had taken refuge in 73 shelter camps. The Assam government authorities provided food to the inmates in these camps.

Due to floods, 10,782 hectares of cropland were submerged by the flood-water which resulted in the destruction of large amounts of agriculture products.

A report by independent policy research think tank The Council on Energy Environment and Water stated that an estimated 72 per cent of districts in India are exposed to extreme flood events but only 25 per cent of them have level flood forecasting stations.

Despite high exposure to floods, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Sikkim are the best-performing states in terms of flood early warning systems (EWS), the report added.