Write a letter to the editor of the newspaper The Assam Tribune on the topic Spreading Garbage in your locality
Answers
To
The Editor
The Assam Tribune
P.O:- Assam Tribune
GNB Road, Chandmari
Guwahati – 781003
Sub:- Your editorial published in “The Assam Tribune” dated 12th March 2013
Sir,
Apropos your editorial published in 12th March 2013 issue of “The Assam Tribune”, you
have, without any basis, leveled serious charges against Brahmaputra Board. Before writing the
editorial, you should have collected detailed information which is readily available in the official
website of the Brahmaputra Board. You could have also sought required information from the
Brahmaputra Board or the Ministry of Water Resources under the ‘Right to Information Act-
2005’. Instead, you depended heavily on assumptions and did not hesitate to call Brahmaputra
Board a ‘White Elephant’. This is extremely unbecoming of an editor of a prestigious newspaper
to which I am a regular subscriber for last more than thirty years.
Being an employee of Brahmaputra Board for last almost thirty years, I would like to
inform that I am unable to digest the garbage spewed through your editorial. While deliberately
attacking Brahmaputra Board, you have surprisingly remained silent on the activities vis-à-vis
achievement of Water Resources Department of Government of Assam. You should know that
Brahmaputra Board’s existence is not solely for solution of problems of Assam. The jurisdiction
of the Board covers entire North Eastern States including Sikkim and part of West Bengal draining
into Brahmaputra. Brahmaputra Board’s creation was not solely for management of flood and
erosion problem of Assam. Water is basically a State Subject as per ‘Entry 17’ of Section XI -
State List or List-I of Constitution of India. Therefore, the State Government is responsible to
take measures for managing flood and erosion problem of Assam. Board Act does not empower
Brahmaputra Board to take up unilaterally any flood management or erosion control projects.
Besides the approval of Government of India, the concerned State Government has to issue ‘No
Objection Certificate’ along with undertaking to take up operation and maintenance of any work to
be taken up by Brahmaputra Board for implementation. Lands required for these projects have to
be made available to the Board ‘free of cost’ by the concerned state.
As far as the assigned responsibilities of Brahmaputra Board – a Statutory Organisation, it
has completed preparation of 57 Master Plans of Brahmaputra, Barak, their tributaries and rivers
of Tripura. Board has prepared ‘Detailed Project Reports’ of large numbers of storage projects as
recommended in the Master Plans and some of these DPRs have been techno-economically
cleared by the Government of India. Board took up execution of one such storage project, on