The Brahmaputra has been taking Assam's land for decades — and Morigaon has paid dearly. Now, Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma is pushing back, reviewing a clutch of reclamation projects at Chanaka, Morigaon on Tuesday, 10 November 2026, aimed at clawing back thousands of bighas swallowed by the river.

Three Projects, 4,000–5,000 Bighas on the Table

The Chief Minister's Office confirmed that CM Sarma reviewed both ongoing and proposed land reclamation initiatives at Chanaka. A 1,000-bigha project is set to break ground soon, a 1,500-bigha project has been proposed, and together with existing work, three projects are being planned to collectively reclaim between 4,000 and 5,000 bighas in the region.

The scale is significant for a district that has watched fertile agricultural land — and in some cases entire homesteads — disappear into the Brahmaputra year after year. The office described the effort as 'opening up new possibilities for productive use of land.'

Why Morigaon, Why Now

Morigaon district, sitting in central Assam, is among the state's most erosion-vulnerable zones. The Brahmaputra — one of the world's largest rivers by discharge — shifts its channel constantly, particularly during monsoon flooding, claiming riverbank land that farmers and communities depend on. Assam loses thousands of bighas to erosion annually, a slow-motion crisis that displaces families and shrinks the cultivable land base.

The Brahmaputra Board, established in 1980 under central mandate, was created precisely to coordinate flood control and erosion management across the valley. Decades on, the gap between the board's mandate and the scale of erosion on the ground has kept reclamation projects firmly in demand across successive state governments.

From Review to Rollout — What Comes Next

CM Sarma, who has made infrastructure and disaster resilience a signature pitch since taking office in May 2021, has used high-visibility reviews like Tuesday's to signal political priority and accelerate bureaucratic timelines. The key variables still to be resolved: funding sources, environmental clearances, and whether these projects will be integrated with centrally-sponsored flood management schemes.

For the farming communities of Morigaon, the arithmetic is straightforward — every bigha reclaimed is a bigha that can grow crops, support a household, and reduce the pressure of displacement. Whether the announced scale translates to ground-level delivery will be the real measure of this initiative.

Assam's fight with its own river is as old as the state itself. These three projects won't end it — but if they deliver, they will mark the most ambitious reclamation push Chanaka has seen in a generation.