Guwahati: As Assam is witnessing the Covid-19 upcharge for the last few weeks, State chief minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that the northeastern State’s oxygen production capacity has gone up to 80 mt in regards to its present requirement of around 70 mt. Visiting an oxygen plant at Saukuchi in the city on Monday, Sarma also added that PM Narendra Modi led Union government had also allocated100 mt oxygen to Assam which is transported by a dedicated train. Apart from fulfilling the State’s own requirement, Assam is also helping other northeastern States like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Nagaland by providing oxygen.
Sarma earlier reviewed the functioning of water resources department and asked the concerned officials to take urgent steps to complete maximum ongoing schemes within May to minimize the damage caused by flood to people and their properties. He also directed them to identify the vulnerable points in the embankments across the State and carry out strengthening on a war footing while completing the breach closing works at the earliest. Stating that dredging could bring satisfactory results in reducing the impact of flood, Sarma ordered the department to identify rivers those cause maximum havoc during flood and examine the feasibility of dredging there.
He instructed the department to submit a draft proposal outlining the areas for improvement apart from innovative and technologically sound systems to make it more efficient. In presence of State water resources minister Pijush Hazarika along with responsible government officials, Sarma advised the department to develop an accountability mechanism to ensure judicious utilization of public money.
