Floating barriers in Guwahati rivulets to prevent waste pile-up

Guwahati: The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) has planned to place floating garbage barriers in the city’s rivulets to prevent waste from piling up and to ensure free flow of stormwater during monsoon.
The decision was taken after the GMC placed such a floating barrier in Bahini river channel in the Rukminigaon area on May 16 on a pilot basis and found that it served the dual purpose.
GMC commissioner MN Dahal said, “It is a short-term plan. The rivulets are inaccessible to the GMC at many locations making it difficult to carry on with the work of excess silt removal. Therefore, we are going to place the garbage barriers at accessible locations so that it can prevent waste from accumulating.”
GMC will place the garbage barriers at six locations in all the five rivulets, including the Bharalu and Bahini, and will clean these areas thrice a week.
In December last year, GMC had installed CCTV cameras at 10 locations along the Bahini river to keep a watch on people throwing garbage into the river channels.