As the Himalayas are very young and the topography in the North-East is fragile, so landslides and rock-slides have become a regular feature, especially during the monsoon seasons, said Brig M. S. Ghai, chief engineer, Project Vartak, Border Road Organisation (BRO), Tezpur.

Inaugurating a 10-day orientation course on ‘Application of Geological Information System (GIS) in Landslide Hazard Mitigation with Special Reference to North-East Region, Brig Ghai called upon the technocrats and scientists to come out with long-term solution of the problems which the BRO faces particularly during the monsoons. “Let there be serious research on the matter and technocrats and scientists should suggest the means to control landslides and rock-slides that hindered the development of the region,” Brig Ghai said.

The 10-day orientation course is being jointly organised by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune and Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Itanagar and sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India to recommend the means to check the communication hazard in the whole of the region.

Citing an example Brig Ghai said two strong Bailey bridges near Bomdila in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh were washed away within 20 minutes a few months back and it was glaring evidence of fragility of topography of the area.

Amar Nath, Secretary, Planning and Tourism, Arunchal Pradesh highlighted the perennial problem of communication hazard in the State and how the people are facing problems in their day-to-day life due to communication bottlenecks.

1 killed, 2 injured in Mizoram landslide

One person was killed and two others, including a teenaged girl, were injured in a massive landslide triggered by downpour at Tuikual South locality. Police said that Ram Lal, 28, a CRPF jawan, working as a sentry in the Raj Bhavan, was killed when landslide swept away a three-storied building. The building occupied by five families, was completely damaged and local volunteers belonging to the Young Mizo Association pulled out the body of the person killed and the injured from under the debris. In another landslide, a government residential building at Tuikhuahtlang locality here was damaged, forcing the residents to evacuate. No one was injured.

Focus on NE as major hydrocarbon growth area

Most of the North-East, which falls under the Assam and Assam-Arakan Basin (AAAB) of the ONGCL, is likely to be a major hydro-carbon producing sector in the country during the Tenth Five-year Plan. This was stated by the ONGCL Director (Exploration) Y. B. Singha.

The Director said under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) of the Union Government, the Corporation had been entrusted with three major blocks for exploration in the AAAB. The blocks are Dhansiri, Mizoram and Changphang area in Nagaland.

Stating that the ONGCL’s structural set-up had entirely been changed in the recent past, Mr. Singh claimed that the production level in Cachar belt would go up in near future. The top official stated that the exploration activity would again resume at the wells of Changmai village near Lakwa in Sivasagar district of Assam by adopting three dimensional seismic method.

Few wells in the said region were abandoned by the ONGCL in the early eighties following the Corporation’s failure to drill out crude oil.

Mr. Singh said the Nagaland Government had already given permission for exploration, but he declined to speak about the issue of threat posed by the undergrounds. ONGCL had suspended its operations in the State in 1994 following threat by the rebels. The Corporation had been producing 200 tones of crude oil per day in Nagaland during that period.

North East can grow sweet potatoes

The North-Eastern region may not provide the perfect climate for all types of agricultural produce but its typical environment suits well to produce sweet potato which could generate employment and provide new opportunities for establishing rural industries in the region.

“In the North-Eastern region, sweet potato is grown mainly as a subsidiary food crop but it is also an important animal feed and has many significant uses,” says N. P. Singh, an expert in the field of agriculture. The processing and marketing of sweet potato can generate employment and provide opportunities for establishment of rural industries in the region, Mr. Singh says.

As one of the cheapest source of food energy, sweet potato should play an important role in meeting the rising consumption of both food and feed for human and animal population. In the NE region, cereal production is not enough to meet this demand, which often forces farmers to buy from other States but sweet potato can help fill the gap by enlarging total food supplies. It can easily grow on land that is not well suited to cereals and other food crops, Mr. Singh points out.

In addition to that, sweet potato is an excellent source of dietary energy - the roots contain significant quantity of Vitamins, Thiamine, Riboflavin and Niacin. Sweet potato has tremendous advantages - apart from its rich food value - it is also cheap and so it can be used to satisfy the energy requirement of a diet at low cost, releasing money for purchase of more expensive high protein foods, Mr. Singh says.

In the North-Eastern region, rice is taken as the only food by the tribal people in their present food habits but this has to be changed by making other cereals, vegetables an pulses and tuber crops as an integral part of food, he says. With the increase in population, the corresponding requirement of rice does not go up proportionately as per capita consumption goes down every year. 

In NE region, per capita consumption of rice is as high as 1.5 quintals consumed per head every year and thus there is a vast scope to scale down the size of consumption by supplementing the requirements with other crops, the expert says. “We have to learn how to combine potato, sweet potato, cassava, yam, maize and other vegetables with rice in our diet schedule,” he says.

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