Embankment construction in Aila-affected areas to be completed by March 2017

Giving a comparative figure of the work undertaken by the Irrigation Department in the past five years of Trinamool Congress government with that of the last four years of the Left Front regime, state Irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee told the Assembly that the construction of embankment in Aila affected areas is expected to be completed by March 2017.

The comparative figure has shown that the quantum of work undertaken in the past five years is manifold that of the same which was implemented in the last four years of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government.

In reply to a question, Banerjee said that the task of constructing around 50 km embankment is already complete. The work to construct the remaining 25 km is going on. It is expected that the task would get completed by March 2017.

Replying to the question of TMC MLA Bankim Chandra Hazra, he said 4 km embankment has already been constructed only in Aila affected areas in Sunderbans from April 1 to October 31. He said that 15.68 km embankment will be constructed only in Gosaba of which 2.35 km is already complete.

He also gave a comparative figure of the work undertaken by the Irrigation Department during the last four years of the Left Front regime and the past five years of TMC government.

He further said in reply to another question of Hazra that Rs 1 crore has been allotted to undertake various work mainly construction of embankment in Ghoramara island, situated around 92 km from Kolkata, in Sundarbans deltas in South 24-Parganas. If everything goes as planned the work would start soon.

It may be recalled that at present around 10,000 people stay in the island that was declared no man’s land by the erstwhile Left Front government in 1998. However no rehabilitation was provided to the residents of the island. The then Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi visited the island after he came to know about the poor condition of the people there and in the Left Front regime some boulders were dumper to check erosion after the Centre had provided a fund.

After the change of guard in the state, a secondary school in the island has been upgraded to higher secondary level.