On Left Bank

On Left Bank
Right Direction

Monday, June 22, 2009

State, FBP wrangle over anti-erosion work


Statesman News Service
MALDA, 22 JUNE: The Farakka Barrage Project (FBP), a Central government initiative, has taken up anti-erosion work in three places along the bank of the Ganga in Malda district out of six vulnerable points identified by the state irrigation officials.

The FBP has also sent a proposal to the district administration for the state irrigation department to take up anti-erosion work in the remaining three places identified by them as the most “vulnerable to erosion”.

The irrigation department in Malda has, however, declined the proposal.

The Malda DM, Mr Sridhar Ghosh, had urged the FBP to look into the problems of erosion and to start proper anti-erosion work on the left bank of the Ganga to save the present embankments from flooding, based on the reports of the irrigation department.

In its reply to the DM, the FBP officials intimated the status report of ongoing anti-erosion work along the left bank of the Ganga. They informed the DM that they had taken up three projects, following the go-ahead from the technical advisory committee. They also maintained that if the state irrigation and waterways department thinks that the works are imperative, it should take up anti-erosion work in the three remaining “vulnerable” places.

The irrigation department in Malda had advised the district administration that the FBP should take up anti-erosion work at all six vulnerable points on the bank of the Ganga. The executive engineer of the irrigation department in Malda, Mr Soumen Misra, had declined the proposal.

“I have informed higher authorities about the proposal but they have not agreed to accept it, because the area is completely under the jurisdiction of the FBP, a Central government agency, and we can not take up any job there,” said Mr Soumen Misra.

The state government had extended the FBP’s jurisdiction after handing over another 32 km to Farrakka Barrage on the left bank of the river in Malda following the request of the then Union water resources minister Mr Priya Ranjan Das Munshi.

According to Mr Misra, the remaining places where the FBP did not take up the work ~ Gopalpur to Domhat in Manikchak block, Sultantola and its downstream and Shivmandir in Kaliachak II block ~ are vulnerable and the existing embankments could be damaged if the project is not initiated.


No comments: