Strong Armed

: Luit Chaliha, Sivasagar, 21 September, 2010

A boy pulls a boat full of woods on the river Brahmaputra on their way to Dimow at the Afala area in Disangmukh, 25 KM from Sivasagar, Assam, India. Fishing for wood becomes an important occupation for the villagers of Disangmukh in Assam’s Sivasagar district, every monsoon as the river washes away pieces of wood and even large trees from the shores. This wood is then dried and used for various purposes. Most of the villagers in Assam use firewood as fuel. As many as 81.6 percent of rural households in northeast India depend on firewood. The scarcity of firewood is a major problem in the villages. The annual consumption of firewood is estimated at 5.2 million tones in the Assam state alone. It is estimated that about half of the total requirements of firewood is drawn from the forest. However, annual availability of firewood in the forest of Assam is about 1.4 million tones.