Lok Sabha MP from Assam – Dilip Saikia has urged the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas to immediately implement the recommendations mentioned in the MK Yadav report.
“I request you to kindly instruct the concerned authority to implement MK Yadav report with immediate effect,” MP Dilip Saikia said in his letter to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Notably, the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Maguri Beel lie adjacent to the disaster hit well number 5 of the Baghjan oil fields.
“The leaked condensate had affected local agricultural crops and plants, including bamboo, tea, bananas and betel nuts. Wind conditions had carried the leaked gas towards Dibru-Saikhowa National Park,” Saikia said.
He added: “Wildlife Division officials noted that because of rain immediately following the leak, local waterbodies had been contaminated by condensate from the leak.”
Also read: Tripura: NLFT lying low in Bangladesh, may ramp up extortion activities soon
Dilip Saikia further apprised the Parliamentary panel about the demands of Baghjan Gaon Milanjyoti Yuva Sangha (BGMYS).
Saikia said that the BGMYS has demanded that the Baghjan village be declared a model village and setting up of an ITI in the village.
A blowout, explosion and fire lasting more than five months, from May 27 to November 15, 2020, in the Baghjan oil fields in Assam’s Tinsukia district resulted in loss of an estimated 55 per cent of the biodiversity in the affected Dibru-Saikhowa landscape.
As many as 1,632 hectares of wetland, 523 ha of grassland, 172 ha of area covering rivers and streams, and 213 ha of forest were damaged to varying degrees.