Silchar, May 26 : The residents of Silchar have had enough of waterlogging every year.
Since Saturday, the people of south Silchar localities, who bear the brunt of the waterlogging, have been blocking the arterial roads to Hailakandi and Mizoram every day to force the authorities to look up and take notice.
Police have not reacted but adopted a wait-and-watch policy.
Finally, on Tuesday, Cachar deputy commissioner Harendra Kumar Debmahanta summoned an emergency meeting in his office to find solutions to this problem.
Senior officials of the Silchar municipality, flood control department, PWD and town and country planning office attended the meeting.
It was decided to execute an emergency plan to give an immediate and short-term relief to the residents of south Silchar.
The scheme, which was hammered out in the meeting, will cost the government exchequer around Rs 1 crore.
It envisaged the immediate construction of a cross culvert at a cost of Rs 33 lakh across the road on Chittaranjan Road and on Netaji Subhash Avenue linking Assam University, Silchar NIT and a cluster of tea estates, before it reached the neighbouring district headquarters town of Hailakandi.
The second component of this package is the drilling an underground tunnel in Apanjon Road on the broader National Highway 54, which links Silchar with Mizoram, at the cost of Rs 35 lakh.
Finally, an underground drain will be constructed at the cost of Rs 37 lakh to flush out excess water.
Dibakar Bhattacharjee, the executive engineer of the flood control department, said, “These schemes, however, could act as a minor palliative to the lopsided drainage system of this town.”
He had stressed the need for a masterplan for a new drainage system in this town, which the residents have been demanding ever since waterlogging became a perennial problem since the early eighties.
In 2001, a Rs 73-crore central scheme was sanctioned , but was later put on hold as major loopholes were detected.
Bhattacharjee said a series of the intermittent showers during the rainy season results in waterlogging.
In addition, the choking of the drains with non-biodegradable items like plastics and polythene have compounded the problem.
Rapid and unplanned urbanisation, coupled with encroachment are the other factors which lead to waterlogging in the monsoon.
Bhattacharjee called for a broader perspective to resolve the problem by digging as well as clearing the four natural channels of Rangir khal, Bacchai khal, Longai khal and Malini beel, where the rainwater used to accumulate.
Water spilled over from these natural channels as well because one, they were never cleaned, and two, people dumped garbage indiscriminately on the banks.