With the onset of the rainy season, water logging at several commercial and residential areas has become a common phenomenon in Mangaldai town of Assam’s Darrang district.
Even though the township is blessed by nature with two flowing rivulets namely Mangaldai and Bega, in each rainy season over the last many years the tax payers of the township have been suffering the brunt of the perennial water logging problem allegedly due to the lack of pragmatic vision of the elected local civic body of the Municipal Board to drain out the polluted water to these rivers through a proper water management system.
This season is also not an exception and the situation has turned serious in several areas of the townships especially in Ward no 5 , 6 , 1 , 2 etc following the continuous rainfall in the last couple of days.
Affected people of Ward No-5 area have expressed strong resentment over the negligence of the municipal body to address this grievances allegedly even after several public prayers in recent time.
They have alleged that the situation turned bad to worse following the construction of few meters of drain in an unscientific manner without maintaining the necessary technical measures of gradient and leveling resulting water logging immediately after a heavy shower of few minutes.
“The Municipal Board has been intentionally neglecting the residents of this ward. Today I tried to contact the chairman of the Board, Manik Sil Sarma several times over phone bit there was no response. Then I went to his office but failed to find him even there,” an irked Sambu Nath Deb, a former ward commissioner and a prominent local BJP leader said while talking to North East Now on Thursday.
The local BJP leader has also expressed suspicion over the proper utilization of the fund amounting Rs 3.40 lakh under 13th Finance Commission left out by the previous civic body for drainage work in the said ward.
The water logging caused by the over-flow of the short and temporary earthen drain along the western part of busy Mangaldai-Bhutiachang state highway in front of Darrang Academy Junior College at Ward No-6 has also creating visible hardships to the students, teachers, traders, commuters etc.
The students of the institution had submitted petition before the Municipal authority requesting for an urgent solution to this problem but it hardly had any impact on them.
“The problem has arisen from the last rainy season after a low lying land where rain water had earlier deposited was filled up with soil and it can be solved even if drain with a stretch of nearly one hundred meter each in the south and north direction could have been dug,” observed Mira Deka, the Managing Director of Darrang Academy.