They also expressed disapproval of the landslide hazard control policy of the State describing it as unregulated and haphazard without any coordination.
Interacting with experts from allied departments from all over the country at a two-day programme on management of landslides in North East India which commenced at Hotel Japfü today, experts pointed out that the precarious condition of Nagaland is greatly affecting normal life in the state, causing loss of lives, damage to property, infrastructure, communication, forestland, modified landscape, and is causing the ecosystem to be fragile.
Also, it is incurring losses in terms of human settlement, compensation, relief and rehabilitation, realignment and costly repair of communication, thus critically hampering the state’s policies and programmes, they said and concurred that the problem needs to be tackled from the grassroots level.
Also sharing his views, Professor Glenn T Thong, from the department of Geology, Nagaland University, in his welcome address, said that it has become imperative to sit across the table in order to evolve strategies and tackle the problem due to the fact that during monsoon seasons, states like Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, and Nagaland suffer extensively due to landslides.
Today’s brainstorming session mainly focussed on the issue of landslides occurring within the North East region due to adverse geomorphic and geological conditions, heavy and prolonged rainfall, indiscriminate cutting of slopes, unplanned developmental activities, and deforestation.
It saw participation by town planners, disaster managers, engineers, geoscientists, etc. from various State governments, Geological Survey of India, Border Roads Organization, and Universities of the North East, to chalk out future courses to mitigate the problem.
The programme was organised by the department of Geology, NU Kohima, and sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology, government of India, New Delhi. The main resource persons were Dr. Trilochan Singh of DCS Ltd. New Delhi, Prof. T N Singh from IIT Bombay, Dr. S Ibotombi of Manipur University, Imphal, Dr. A Kar from CGWB Itanagar, K A Lotha, DGM Nagaland, and Dr. P P Nageswara Rao, Director at NESAC Shillong. Meanwhile, it was learnt that the participants of the programme would be visiting two important landslide areas within Kohima town on Wednesday.