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Planning for Sustainable Development in Bornadi and Nonoi River Basin of Assam

2011; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

1556-5068

Monoj Hazarika,

Social and Economic Development in India

River basin as a unit of planning has several advantages. The interaction among the elements and their impact on environment follow mostly the watershed boundary but not the political one. Water flows downhill regardless of how people define their political boundaries. Activities in upstream villages affect the villages downstream. As environment cut across political boundaries, what may be sound resource use from the point of view of one political administrative unit (state, district, panchayat or village) within a basin may not be sound from broader point of view, because of undesirable downstream effects. Therefore, river basin as a planning unit is holistic in purpose and perspective. This enables the planners and management experts to consider many facts of resource development in systematic way. Even from economic point of view, the river basin approach is logical because it has a definite role in shaping the basic economic structure, and facilitates to undertake internally compatible activities making it easier to plan for management and development of agriculture, forestry, hydropower, irrigation, wetland and other socio-economic and infrastructural attributes.With the above points in view, it is proposed here to study the Barnadi-Nanoi river basin in the districts of Darrang and Kamrup. The study area is located between 91°44 East longitudes and 91°57 East, and latitude 26°13 North to 25°51 North covering an area of 1249.7 square kilometer. The basin area covers three complete revenue circles and part of another three circles in Darrang district, i.e. Sipajhar, Pathorighat, Khoirabari, Kalaigaon, Mangaldoi, and Harisinga. It also covers 61 villages of Kamrup district under three different revenue circles, namely Goreswar, Kamalpur, and North-Guwahati. Thus the entire area covers a total of 508 villages out of which 447 villages belong to Darrang and the remaining 61 villages to kamrup district.This area is not homogenous. The physical and social variations are well reflected in population distribution and density. The area is inhabited by a population of 497,912 (1991) which is not uniformly distributed. The villages belonging to Kamalpur circle for example have the highest density (more than 500 persons per sq. Km.). Other high-density revenue circles are Mangaldoi and Goreswar, which have more than 450 persons per sq. km. The less density area covers seven villages under the North-Guwahati revenue circle, which lies at the southern most part of the study area. The study area is inhabited by different groups of people and shows significant concentration of indigenous tribal people in the Khoirabari (49.39%), Goreswar (24.71%), and Harisinga (26.56%) circle. Of the total population in the area, 21% belongs to the tribal community indicating significant cultural and socio-economic diversity. There are also scheduled caste people constituting 5.39% (26872 persons in 1991 census) of the areas total population. There is no forest cover as shown by the census record in the villages belonging to Goreswar, Kalaiogaon, Khoirabari, and Mangaldoi revenue circle, but the Sipajhar circle alone has more than half of the forest area available in the entire area. The overall forest cover in the study area is less than 1% indicating high rate of deforestation. The study area has 70.54% of the land used for cultivation. Uncultivable and constitutes 18%, cultivable wasteland covers 11.46%. Only 13% land has irrigation facilities indicating an urgent need of agricultural modernization in the area where around 68.60% of the population is engaged in agriculture. As the main source of income of the people is agriculture they have to depend on its land and water resources. The area however, suffers from flood problem created by its river system. It also faces with gully erosion in northern part of the area where average altitude is between 100 and 150 meters. On the other hand it has the problem of river bank erosion in the middle and the southern portion. Flood destroys crops; cattle and property causing remarkable set back to the economy of the area. Beside the above stated environmental and social situations, infrastructurally also the area continues to remain backward. There is ample scope for proper planning and management of the existing physical and non-physical resources and elements in the area towards sustainable growth and development in the context of the basin characteristics.