Assam CM releases report on Flood prepared by SITA and Cotton University

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday released a report on ‘Floods and Impacts on Livelihood in Rural Assam’ prepared on behest of the state government’s think tank State Innovation and Transformation Aayog (SITA) on 15th October. The report titled ‘Floods and Impacts on Livelihood in Rural Assam How could the State break the Poverty Trap?’ is a research article which outlined several major points to curb out the problem of floods and the possible policy interventions and measures needed to weather through it.

The study was sponsored by SITA and was prepared by Cotton University. The researchers involved in putting out this report visited 83 villages across eight districts of the state and interacted with 1,100 households. To start with, the report said the negative outcomes generated on multiple fronts by floods at present — physical and institutional settings — are emerging as major impediments of development and “persistent poverty” in Assam.

The Human Development Index (HDI) of Assam, it said, could have been much higher and the state would have been a front runner in India’s pursuit to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) had there been measures to prevent the negative outcomes emerging from regular floods. Unfortunately, floods have been a perennial issue for Assam, which impacts a large cross-section of people living specifically along the floodplains. Assam has two major rivers – Brahmaputra and Barak – with dozens of tributaries.