The mighty Brahmaputra has swallowed 4.27 lakh hectares of land due to erosion, greatly impacting development in the state, water resource minister Pijush Hazarika informed the assembly on Wednesday.
In a reply to a query, he said that flood and erosion are the main disasters caused by the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers and their tributaries
In view of the same, the Water Resource department has been implementing erosion protection schemes time to time as per necessity, he said.
"These schemes have yielded desired results in terms of controlling the perennial problem of erosion by different rivers," the minister said.
In 2015, the assembly had passed a resolution for inclusion of river erosion within the guidelines of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF). The state government's revenue and disaster management department has notified erosion as a state specific disaster in 2015 and as per norms, 10 percent of the allocated funds under the SDRF can be used for state specific disasters, Hazarika said.
He further said that the 15th Finance Commission has considered erosion as a disaster and addresses two aspects of erosion which include mitigation measures to prevent erosion and resettlement of people displaced by erosion.
The Commission recommended Rs 100 crore under NDRF for resettlement of people affected by erosion and Rs 1,500 crore under National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF) separately for measures to control erosion, he added.