GUWAHATI: A total of 880 casualties have been reported as a result of devastating floods in Assam from 2019 to July 25 this year, the Ministry of Home Affairs has said.
Minister of State of Home Affairs Nityanand Rai on Thursday provided these figures in response to a question posed by MP Sushmita Dev in the Rajya Sabha.
The annual breakdown of casualties is as follows: 157 in 2019, 190 in 2020, 73 in 2021, 278 in 2022, 65 in 2023, and 117 up to July 25 this year.
The union minister said that the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) have prepared a state-level flood hazard zonation atlas for Assam using satellite data of 1998-2023.
“North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC)/ Department of Space (DOS) has generated River Atlas consisting of a geospatial database of Brahmaputra River in Assam, including river and drainage network, embankment locations, river gauge locations, road/ rail network etc. at 1:5000 scale. This database is helpful for the planning and management of water resources,” Rai said.
He said NESAC has also identified 271 wetlands that can channel excess water from rivers, including the Brahmaputra, during the monsoon season.
Besides, NESAC has developed a Flood Early Warning System (FLEWS) for the Brahmaputra basin, providing the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) with alerts 24 to 36 hours in advance, he added.
The MoS of Home Affairs further said that the Assam government has informed that the Water Resources Department has been implementing flood and River bank erosion management schemes as per the recommendation of the Rashtriya Barh Ayog (RBA).
He said the Water Resources Department has protected 16.50 lakh hectares of flood-affected land, constructed 4,532 km of embankments, completed 1,280 anti-erosion and town protection works, 122 numbers of major sluices and 545 numbers of minor sluices and 1047.85 km of raising and strengthening of existing dyke till the year 2023-24.
Stating that the financial support from the Centre has been significant, he stated the Centre has released Rs 503.10 crore to Assam under the centre’s share of SDRF in 2019-20, Rs 617.60 crore in 2020-21, Rs 617.60 crore in 2021-22, Rs 648.80 crore in 2022-23 and Rs 680.80 crore in 2023-24.
The Centre also released Rs 44.37 crore from NDRF to Assam in 2020-21, Rs 250 crore in 2022-23; Rs 154.40 crore under the centre’s share of SDMF in 2020-21, Rs 154.40 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 162.20 crore in 2023-24.
