Union Home Minister and Chairman of the North Eastern Council (NEC), Amit Shah chaired a meeting in Guwahati today to look at making the state of Assam flood free.

The meeting was attended by Assam chief minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma and senior officials of the state government.

The Union Home Minister emphasized that if Assam is to develop further and attract significant private investment, then protection from floods is a key requirement.

He stated that the state must come up with a long term plan which would provide protection from floods for decades to come and not to look at short term measures alone.

Amit Shah stressed that the Assam Government should come up with a concrete action plan to protect and rejuvenate the wetlands in the State and increase their holding capacity so that they can also act as storage reservoirs during floods.

He emphasized that the State must take all steps in this regard including enacting a law for protection of reservoirs and a mechanism for enforcement of the same.

The Union Home Minister also said that a meeting with the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Power and the State Government will soon be convened to look at measures to include more flood moderation storage reservoirs along with Hydro Projects in Arunachal Pradesh etc. to mitigate floods in the State.

For developing the capacity of State Water Resource Department and ASDMA, Shah requested that apart from utilizing the services of NESAC, with which the State Government has entered into an MoU for developing flood forecasting and Early warning Systems, the State and NESAC should also look at involving National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in capacity building of State Agencies as well.