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The Assam government is concerned as 15 districts in the state are among the 25 identified as most vulnerable to climate change.
State Minister for Science, Technology and Climate Change Keshab Mahanta said that out of 15, according to the survey reports from the two top institutes – IIT Guwahati and IIT Mandi, Karimganj tops the list.
Karimganj falls on the state border of the Barak Valley. The district used to receive a lot of rain every year, but recently, this has decreased. In fact, after two monsoon floods in Assam, Karimganj has received very little rainfall in the last two months.
The other two districts of Barak Valley – Cachar and Hailakandi – are also in the most vulnerable category.
Silchar, the second most populous city in Assam and the headquarters of Cachar district, experienced the worst floods in June. But from the middle of July, the rain also fell in Cachar, which sent a warning signal to the locality.
Apart from these three districts, the other 12 districts include Goalpara, which is ranked second in the list, while Dhubri and Sonitpur are in the third and fourth positions, respectively.
The others are Darang, Golaghat, Barpeta, Kokrajhar, Tinsukia, Baksa, Morigaon, Dibrugarh, and Sivsagar.
Mahanta said that climate change has affected the agricultural economy in the region.
Quoting the Assam Climate Change Action Plan report, he said: “The temperature in Assam has seen a steady rise over the years in agriculture.”
The report also said that between 1951 and 2010 the region’s temperature rose by 0.59 degrees Celsius each year.
After the monsoon rains hit many districts of Cassam in May and June this year, another drought situation has occurred in at least five districts of the region, the minister said.
Assam’s Climate Change Action Plan report estimated a 75 percent increase in drought conditions in the coming years. It also assessed that Assam may witness around 25 percent increase in floods.
In 2021, many districts of Assam were hit by drought due to a 21 percent decrease in rainfall in June and July, which affected agricultural production.
Mahanta informed that the government is preparing an action plan to deal with the climate change situation in the region.
— IANS
tdr/vd
(Only the title and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content was pulled directly from an aggregated feed.)
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