The Hindu : National : Linking rivers can check floods, says Advani

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 28, 2004

National

National

Linking rivers can check floods, says Advani

By Sushanta Talukdar

GUWAHATI, JULY 27. The former Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani, today said the plan to interlink rivers should be implemented as it could tackle flood and drought situations.

Mr. Advani, who conducted an aerial inspection of the flood affected areas of lower and central Assam this afternoon, said the water of the rivers such as the Brahmaputra was sought to be taken out through the interlinking of the rivers proposed by the previous National Democratic Alliance Government. He urged the United Progressive Alliance Government to complete the fresh feasibility study on the project as soon as possible. However, the federal structure of the country should be borne in mind and it should be taken only with the consent of the States concerned.

Call to NGOs

Mr. Advani exhorted political parties and non-governmental organisations to supplement the efforts of the Central and the State Governments to prevent the outbreak of epidemics in the flood-hit areas and continue with relief and rehabilitation of the people affected.

Asked to comment on the demand raised by the State Government and various organisations of the State to declare Assam's flood and erosion problem as a national problem, he said there was no statutory provision in the Constitution to declare flood as a national problem. He, however, said that he regarded both flood and drought as national problems.

Leaders of the State unit of the BJP accompanied Mr. Advani during his two-hour long aerial inspection of flood-affected areas.

`Confused approach'

Mr. Advani accused the UPA Government of issuing contradictory statements in Parliament on the estimate of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants living in Assam. Such statements indicated the confused approach of the UPA Government while dealing with a serious problem, he said.

He said that while the previous NDA Government had viewed the problem of illegal Bangladeshi migrants as a serious one having multidimensional consequences, the Congress-led Government termed it a human problem.

Mr. Advani cautioned against vote-bank politics determining Government policies on such serious issues as the problem of largescale influx of illegal Bangladeshi migrants to the country.

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