Master stroke

After years of chaos, Assam8217;s biggest city, Guwahati, gets a draft master plan

Once upon a time there was a great city called Pragjyotishpur or Kamarupa. As important as Pataliputra or Indraprastha, this city was well planned, divided into quarters and blocks with parks and tanks. Its main streets were called raja margas and market places vithis. The Kalika Purana refers to it as giri durg, a city protected by hills, and it also finds mention in other scriptures.

Today, the city is called Guwahati, and has no semblance with the one mentioned in the scriptures. It8217;s unplanned, and chaotic. A heavy downpour drowns the city in knee-deep water for days, a chief minister8217;s convoy leaves the traffic in a mess, barely 20 per cent of the city8217;s 12 lakh population get piped water, garbage disposal is still in its primitive stage, and incredibly enough, Assam8217;s capital, which is also the gateway to the Northeast, does not have a sewage disposal system.

Things may, however, change soon. The Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority GMDA has come out with a draft master plan for the city. Prepared at a cost of Rs 86 lakh by a Delhi-based firm, it provides for expansion of the city, apart from creating three new satellite townships to lessen the burden of the growing population. It projects the city8217;s population as 21.74 lakh by 2025, and suggests development of an intra-urban transport system, which includes a light rail transit system LRTS, flyovers, a tunnel, one more bridge across the Brahmaputra, and wider roads.

8220;Guwahati could have been converted into a wonderful city had the government applied serious thought when the capital was shifted from Shillong in 1972 after the creation of Meghalaya,8221; says Amiya Sharma, an eminent economist who heads the Rashtriya Grameen Vikash Nidhi.

8220;While other cities like Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad were developed as planned cities, we neglected this historic city. Now we must do our best to save the city,8221; says Dhiren Barua, who heads an NGO, Save Guwahati, Build Guwahati SGBG.

Most of the city8217;s hills and wetlands have been encroached upon, with politicians and policy-makers encouraging it. This was evident when three of the four Guwahati MLAs pressed for granting the encroachers land rights instead of evicting them when the government introduced a bill in the state assembly to protect the hills and wetlands, a few weeks ago.

The draft master plan stresses on environmental development and has suggested preservation of hills and wetlands, besides a proposal to earmark about 16 per cent of the developed land as green belt and open space. The hills and wetlands will be no-construction zones, as per the plan.

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8220;We welcome the draft master plan, but it doesn8217;t have the provision for a sewage disposal system. Guwahati8217;s drinking water situation is dangerous, with most people depending on ground water,8221; says Barua.

Guwahati also does not have any legal provision for protection and conservation of heritage structures. But Sharma has ambitious plans for the city8217;s beautification, and he has already approved the clearing of the 20-km-long riverfront.

Even as the plan is being put up for public suggestions, the people in Guwahati are hoping the plan will translate into reality soon.