The Barak River is a river flowing through the states of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Assam in India and into the Bay of Bengal via Bangladesh. Of the 900 km, 524 km is in India, 31 km on Indo – Bangladesh border and the rest is in Bangladesh. The navigable portion of Barak River in India, the 121 km stretch between Lakhipur and Bhanga has been declared as National Waterway 6, in the year 2016. The river drains an area of, of which lies in India which is nearly 1.38% of the total geographical area of the country. The environment of Barak's basin hosts a wide variety of flora and fauna. The principal tributaries of the Barak are all in India and are the River Sonai, the Jiri, the Tlawng, the Longai and the Madhura. Tipaimukh Dam is a proposed embankment dam on the Barak River.
Wildlife
Barak is among the richest rivers in the world in terms of aquatic biodiversity, as it contains more than 2,000 species of fishes. Other creatures include River Barak crocodile, or Siamese crocodile , susu dolphin, smooth-coated otter and the black mugger. From its origin, down to its bifurcation at the border of Nagaland into Surma River and Barak River, the Barak River is long. The biomes are extremely rich in wildlife and also very diverse in the entire stretch of the river including: 1. Varzea forest 2. Los llamjao 3. Tidal forest 4. Flora or vegetation of the Pats 5. Huge tropical swamps.
Environmental concerns
Environmentalists have expressed concern over the way aquatic creatures and their habitats are being destroyed in the upper reaches of river Barak in southern Assam. Prominent nature conservation NGO Society for Activists for Forest and Environment has pointed out that the tribals living on both banks of Barak have developed the harmful practice of blasting small gelatin sticks smuggled from Mizoram in the river to catch fish. In the process, thousands of fish both young and matured along with turtles, dolphins and other aquatic life organisms were becoming the victim of merciless killing. The Ganges river dolphin also face an imminent threat. The proposed Tipaimukh Dam on the Barak River in northeast India – a controversial political issue between India and Bangladesh – could be the last nail in the coffin for the elusive Ganges river dolphin in Assam’s Barak river system, researchers warn. Making a plea for conservation, researchers from Assam have warned in a study that the endangered Ganges river dolphin, India’s national aquatic animal is heading towards “local extinction” in the Barak river system of the state. “Factors like poaching and accidental mortalities in fishing gears, gradual habitat degradation by sluice gates, embankments, disturbances like motorboats and aquatic pollution have resulted in the extirpation of the resident dolphin population from the Barak river system of Assam,” M.K. Mazumder, corresponding author of the study, told Mongabay-India.
