Guwahati, July 12: The 57-year-old River Research Institute, Assam, had not just studied behaviours of the state's rivers, but had trained government officials from neighbouring Bangladesh and some African countries on how to carry out physical study of rivers.

The engineers and reservoir observers of the institute, however, have been sitting almost idle for about 10 years because of lack of government support.

Sources in the institute here at Basistha told The Telegraph that the state government had given away 74 bighas of land for the 2007 National Games where a river study model was situated.

"We used to physically measure depth of water, width, currents of the tributaries of the Brahmaputra, the Barak and other rivers and then study them in our model system here. But after our land was given away, it affected our study. We have been sitting idle for about 10 years. We had submitted a proposal to the state water resources department to provide us facilities for mathematical model study of the rivers, but we have not received any response so far," the source said.

The institute was set up in 1958 at Byrnihat (now in Meghalaya) and was later shifted to its present campus at Basistha. It was renamed in 2013 as the Assam River Research and Water Management Institute. Headed by an additional chief engineer, it has two executive engineers for hydraulic and soil conservation study, four assistant executive engineers, a research officer, a reservoir observer and other technical staff."

"Now we are only conducting some workshops and training programmes for the water resources department officials. Although the state government as well as the Brahmaputra Board (a central government agency) are engaging IITs or other big institutes to study rivers, those studies are carried out only for specific projects. The rivers in Assam are changing their courses and behaviours because of climate change and growing pressure on our environment. Erosion is becoming a serious issue because of such a change in the behaviours of our rivers. Hence, there is a need to study our tributaries, their changing courses and downstream impacts for taking measures to control erosion and reduce impact of floods on people and on our land," the source said.

"We had carried out physical model studies of Phulbari, Ginjiram and Pancharatna rivers in lower Assam using our model study method. We had also studied the Brahmaputra with the same model which helped our technicians in carrying out flood and erosion control measures. Even river research experts from Bangladesh and some African countries had come here to get training on physical model study of the rivers," said the source.