A view of the Bharalu river. Picture by S.H. Patgiri

Feb. 23: The state water resources department today launched the most comprehensive drive ever to mitigate the monsoon suffering of the citizens.

It began the cleaning and dredging of the three tributaries of the Brahmaputra that criss-cross the city and serve as its major drainage system.

The Rs 3.46-crore project is expected to be completed before the arrival of rains.

Accumulated heaps of garbage dumped in the tributaries — Bahini, Bharalu and Mora Bharalu — block the flow of water, causing artificial floods in the city every monsoon.

Under the project, silt and garbage will be manually and mechanically cleared in the 4.5-km stretch of Bahini river from Roopnagar to the R.G. Barooah road culvert and the 3.6-km stretch of Bharalu river from the R.G. Barooah road culvert to the pump house at Shantipur, where the river empties into the Brahmaputra, department sources said.

The Mora Bharalu will be cleaned in its 6.5-km stretch from Lokhra to Deepor Beel.

The sites were selected after a joint team of the Gauhati Municipal Corporation (GMC) and the water resources department surveyed the tributaries.

“The cleaning of the tributaries will go a long way in preventing the problems of flood and waterlogging in the city,” Guwahati mayor Kushal Sarmah said.

Department sources said they have started work in “anticipation” of funds being handed over to them by the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) within a day or two.

The sources said the department had initially submitted the cleaning-up project to the GMDA and, accordingly, the state government had released Rs 1 crore to the agency.

But the development authority had handed back the project to the department in December last year after spending around Rs 8 lakh on it.

After the cleaning drive, efforts will be made to stop the rolling down of soil along with rainwater from nearby hills to the tributaries.

“Unless this is checked at the source, it will be very difficult to permanently solve the waterlogging problem as soil washed down from the hills will again start accumulating on the river bed,” a senior engineer of the water resources department said.

Cleaning up of Bharalu is part of the ambitious storm-water drainage project undertaken by the GMDA to eradicate the problems of flood and waterlogging.

Based on the findings and suggestions of a one-man inquiry commission — headed by former vice-chancellor of Gauhati University, .K. Choudhary — the GMDA has approached consultancy firms for preparing an approach paper to seek funds from foreign agencies for the storm-water drainage programme.

According to a preliminary estimate, the total cost of the project will be around Rs 450 crore.

The state government has already closed the storm-water drainage project initiated by the previous Asom Gana Parishad government in 2000 as major flaws were detected in it. This, after 88 per cent of the work was completed and Rs 39.33 crore had gone down the drain. Subsequently, the government had asked the GMDA to draw up a fresh scheme.