Guwahati, Nov 27: Sokina Khatun and her six-member family are now totally helpless after the Brahmaputra river wiped out their homes and lands.
“The Brahmaputra river has totally wiped out our home, lands. We are now homeless. We don’t know where we will go,” Sokina Khatun said.
Not only Rejia, nearly 1000 families of Chatlapar, Matifata, Rabhatari, Paampara, but Fakirganj area under South Salmara assembly constituency in Assam’s South Salmara Mankachar district have also been left homeless and forced to move safer places after the Brahmaputra river and its tributaries wiped out their homes, lands.
Villagers of at least 40 villages in the South Salmara assembly constituency have been badly affected due to river erosion in the past several years.
According to the locals, the river erosion continues to wreak havoc in the area and the Brahmaputra river wiped out homes, lands and many religious institutions, school buildings, thousand bighas of agricultural lands.
“We are facing the river erosion problem for the past several years. The Brahmaputra river has swallowed our lands and the villagers from the Fakirganj area to Chatlapar, Matifata, Rabhatari area have been badly affected. Earlier, we had seen the soil erosion of the Brahmaputra river during the rainy season, but river erosion has become more deadly in this year’s winter season also. Nearly 1000 families of the area have been affected due to river erosion in recent times,” Adam Ali – a local villager of Matifata village said.
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He further said that the local administration and government are not doing anything to protect the lands and properties of the villagers and not taking any measures to stop the river erosion.
The local villagers have also shown their anger against the local MLA and Lok Sabha MP Badruddin Ajmal.
On the other hand, river erosion of the Brahmaputra river is also continuing in Goalpara district and the mighty river has eroded the lands of many villagers in the district.
According to the Assam government, the state has so far lost about 4.27 lakh hectares of land by the soil erosion of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries.
