Assam panel to study Yellow River management to stop floods: CM

Guwahati, June 17 (IANS) Assam has decided to set up an expert committee to visit China to study the management of the Yellow River to replicate it for taming the Brahmaputra river in the state and help control floods and soil erosion.

"If the Yellow River, once considered as 'sorrow of China' can be tamed, the Brahmaputra, the lifeline of the people of Assam, can also be harnessed productively to serve the riparian rights of the state's people," Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said while chairing a high-level review meeting of the Water Resource Department on Friday.

Sonowal said the 'knowledge-driven' study in association with the World Bank will also help prepare a roadmap for taming the Brahmaputra and its tributaries to control flood and erosion

The study will encompass basin characteristics, river engineering, hydrology, channel morphology, floodplain evolution within its ambit.

The Chief Minister directed the Water Resource Department to prepare a 'River Atlas' and use the expertise of the North Eastern Space Applications Centre for the same.

Sonowal stressed the need to transform the Assam Water Resources Management Institute into an institute of excellence and undertake extensive studies for optimum and gainful utilisation of rivers.

The Chief Minister also asked the department to work on an early flood warning system in line with that put in place for tsunamis.

IANS