GG News Bureau
Guwahati, 9th Oct. Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday sought five years’ time to fully resolve Assam’s perennial flood problem, and said that the government is striving to make the natural calamity a part of history.
Addressing a BJP workers’ meeting following the inauguration of the party’s newly constructed state office here, Shah stated that an “ambitious” flood mitigation project is currently being prepared.
“In the BJP manifesto, we had promised an Assam free from terrorism, corruption and flood. We’ve already achieved the first two. Give us five more years, we’ll make Assam free from flood,” he said.
Assam is ravaged by three to four flood waves almost every year. According to a state government website, the average annual loss from the disaster is Rs 200 crore.
Shah stated that he had already discussed the issue extensively with the various stakeholders on Friday evening, and that “an ambitious project” is being developed under the auspices of the North Eastern Council (NEC).
“In five years, the flood will be history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to make Assam a flood-free state,” he added.
The Union Home Minister also said that the Government believes in strengthening internal security so that laws like Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) are not required in society and its application is already withdrawn from around 80 percent of the Northeastern region.
“AFSPA is protection for army and security forces. Rahul Gandhi had announced that AFSPA would be withdrawn if his party’s government comes to power. I had said that security forces need to be strengthened,” he added.
In a dig at the Congress’ ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra,’ Shah claimed that former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said goodbye to Assam during the 1962 India-China war and that the grand old party had forgotten that the Northeast even existed.
“This region is three times the size of UP and it was full of separatist and insurgent movements. The Congress watched silently the attempts to break NE. Only Modi worked for this place and united the NE, he said.
“The Congress and those who went for (its) ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, please listen. This is an example of how Northeast was united without giving a single lecture,” he added.
At a meeting here on Friday, Shah asked the Assam government to develop a long-term plan to protect the northeastern state from flooding, allowing for more development.
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