{"id":4049,"date":"2026-07-24T07:30:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T07:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/?p=4049"},"modified":"2026-07-24T07:30:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T07:30:43","slug":"illegal-sand-stone-mining-behind-dikhow-flood-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/24\/illegal-sand-stone-mining-behind-dikhow-flood-fury\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal Sand, Stone Mining Behind Dikhow Flood Fury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Debabrata Saikia, former MLA of Nazira and ex-Leader of the Opposition in Assam, has linked the severe flood damage from the Dikhow river to extensive illegal mining of stones and sand from its riverbed. Saikia remarked that the Dikhow River, historically called \u2018Vashistha Ganga,\u2019 is experiencing unprecedented flooding due to unregulated extraction of resources from its bed. He noted that the river&#8217;s stones used to serve as natural brakes, maintaining its depth; their removal has led to a wider, shallower river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consequently, heavy rainfall this season has caused significant flooding and erosion in Nazira and surrounding areas. He criticized influential individuals profiting from illegal activities for not intervening despite the widespread knowledge of these actions. Saikia filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Gauhati High Court in 2019, aiming to ban illegal riverbed mining. The petition warned that this mining would disturb the ecological balance of the Dikhow river, risking catastrophic floods and erosion in Sivasagar and Nazira regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Debabrata Saikia, former MLA of Nazira and ex-Leader of the Opposition in Assam, has linked&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guwahati"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4051,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions\/4051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}