Guwahati, Dec 13 (IBNS): In a move to draw Centre’s attention to the murky development of turning the Brahmaputra water black in parts of Assam, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the latter’s official residence in New Delhi on Wednesday.
In the meeting which was attended by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Minister of Road Transport, Water Resources and River Development Nitin Gadkari, Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Sonowal requested Prime Minister Modi to accord utmost importance and help the state to take remedial steps.
PM Modi assured Sonowal that the Centre took up the matter seriously and even engaged Central Water Commission to look into matter and directed the Ministry of Water Resources to take remedial steps on a war footing.
Modi also asked other ministries to work in synergy and directed the Ministry of Water Resources to ensure scientific tests of the Brahmaputra water to ascertain the physical and chemical composition of the river water where it turned balck.
Considering the trans-national extent of the Brahmaputra, Modi also asked the Foreign Affairs Ministry to take up the matter with the respective country to get into the root cause of the problem and find a positive solution.
Foreign Affairs Minister Swashma Swaraj maintained that her ministry took up the matter very seriously as her ministry has already contacted with China and a pragmatic and exhaustive study is being undertaken to find the real cause.
Assam CM Sonowal also informed Prime Minister Modi that his State Government, following the development directed Director General of Emergency and Fire Services A.P. Rawat to collect water samples from 15 places from Jonai to Dhubri and in pursuance to the direction Emergency and Fire Services Department, has already sent the water samples to the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad and IIT, Guwahati.
Even Minister of Water Resources, Government of Assam also was directed to do the needful considering the problem.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, Director IB, Rajeev Jain, Secretary Home and Secretaries from different ministries were also present at the meeting.
(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
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