Assam govt soon to set up expert committee to control Brahmaputra

Guwahati: The state government will soon set up an expert committee to control the Brahmaputra. The members of the committee will visit China to study how the neighbouring country has tamed 'China's Sorrow' (Huwang He river).
The previous Congress government had taken a similar decision to study the flood management of the river in China in 2013.
A government spokesman said the team will study the Yellow River (Huwang He) Management Strategies to replicate the same in Assam for taming the Brahmaputra and use it as a deterrent for floods and erosion.
The flooding by Huwang He or the Yellow River, which had caused millions of deaths in China before it was dammed, is the sixth longest river in the world and traverses a length of 4,667 km from Kunlan Mountain in northern China to Bo Hai embayment of the Yellow Sea. The Brahmaputra, in comparison, is ranked the 26th longest and traverses a length of 2900 km from Tibet to the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam before joining the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh.
Chairing a high-level review meeting of the water resource department, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal said, "If the Yellow River can be tamed, the Brahmaputra can also be used productively to serve the riparian rights of the people of the state".
He added that the 'knowledge-driven' study, in association with the World Bank, would prepare a roadmap for taming the Brahmaputra and its tributaries to control floods and erosion.
The study will encompass basin characteristics, river engineering, hydrology, channel morphology, floodplain evolution within its ambit and submit its report.
Sonowal said, "Water is the source of all energies and the Brahmaputra has gifted Assam with abundance of water. The government will use this vast resource to propel the state's development".
Emphasising on the need for a well-coordinated document for the rivers in the state, Sonowal directed the department to do the needful for preparing a 'River Atlas' and asked the department to use the expertise of the North Eastern Space Applications Centre for preparing the same.
Considering the importance of rivers of Assam on its people, culture and economy, Sonowal exhorted the need of transforming the Assam Water Resources Management Institute into an institute of excellence and undertake extensive studies towards rivers for their optimum utilization.