“From now on, there will be intervention in these two districts and we will be much more ready than we were this year. Once we start working in the Upper Assam districts, we believe we will be able to minimise the damage,” Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said at a press conference at Lok Sewa Bhawan on Wednesday.

Sarma also suggested that Assam’s flood patterns could change significantly in the coming years, with the risk potentially shifting away from the Brahmaputra towards its tributaries. “In districts facing floods due to the Brahmaputra, we may see a decline primarily because there are several development activities underway, including large reservoirs in Tibet and hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh.

This may result in moderation of floods in the Brahmaputra over the next few years,” he said. He stressed that future flood-control measures would therefore need to focus more heavily on the Brahmaputra’s tributaries, which he said were largely responsible for the devastation in Upper Assam this year.

“We did not have intervention in the tributaries of the Brahmaputra, and most of the floods are taking place in areas dominated by tributaries such as the Dikhow and Dorika,” Sarma said. “The flood in Sivasagar was not due to the Brahmaputra but due to its tributaries.

The Water Resources Department must concentrate on these tributaries,” he added. New hotspots emerge Sarma said flood-mitigation measures have produced positive results in several districts that have traditionally been vulnerable to flooding.

“Because of measures taken by the State government, this time we have not seen floods in areas where floods usually occur. There is no flood in Nalbari, Baksa, Bajali, Biswanath and Bihpuria, while damages in Dhemaji and Lakhimpur have been limited,” he said.

However, the latest deluge exposed new vulnerabilities in parts of Upper Assam where major flood events had historically been less common. “There has been success in much of Assam, but because two districts had no flood issue earlier, our intervention was not there,” he added, referring to Sivasagar and Charaideo.

The government has also deployed high-capacity de-watering pumps in areas where floodwater remains. 35 lakh litres of water per hour, he informed.

Flood damage runs deep According to Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) Chief Executive Officer Sweety Changsan, 49 embankments had breached, 104 had been affected, 36 bridges damaged and 1,187 roads impacted. Briefing the media ahead of Chief Minister’s press conference, Changsan said the flood situation had improved significantly, although thousands of people remained affected.