DC cracks down on drain desiltation lapses in Guwahati, legal action warned

Guwahati, April 29: More than a month back, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Jayanta Mallabaruah had directed immediate removal of debris desilted from the city's drains and had claimed that the first phase of desiltation works would be completed within March. The deadline was missed, and the directions fell on deaf ears of agencies.

The Kamrup Metro DC has now issued a fresh order warning that if contractors fail to remove the desilted debris within two hours, they will face the music.

DC Sumit Sattawan, who is also the chairman of the District Disaster Management Authority, in an order yesterday instructed all the agencies, departments and contractors concerned to clear the silt from the side of the drains within two hours after desiltation works. He also announced that non-compliance of the instruction will attract legal action under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

On March 13, Minister Jayanta Mallabaruah while addressing a press conference had announced that in order to keep surveillance on the desiltation work, the department formed altogether 21 Monitoring Committees under DDMA Act, comprising department officials, ward representatives, and local citizens. The main duty of such monitoring committees is to look after the desiltation work as per the SoP chalked out by the department.

But in reality, the SoP was not followed properly by the contractors which contributed to the artificial flood in many areas in the city on Monday and April 22.

According to the order issued by the DC, the monitoring committees have reported that "the silt is dumped on the side of drains more than the stipulated time of two hours, in some cases the silt is not lifted even after passage of 24 hours of extraction".

Such shoddy work has turned the desiltation work into a futile exercise, leading to water logging in different parts of the city.