By: Rabin Mazumdar
The long-awaited Guwahati Municipal Corporation elections are fast approaching. Those who come to power to take charge of the city will face difficult challenges – from the question of unplanned growth from a city to a city with an unusual population explosion to the hasty transfer of capital without planning.
The first and main issue that the new committee will have to address is that of drinking water. Even knowing well that water is life, the people at the controls seem to play the violin. There is hardly any expansion of the water supply network beyond what existed in “Guwahati town”. According to the facts, only 30-40% of residents are blessed with running water, many of them making their own arrangements, while those who cannot depend on natural waterways, whose most are high in arsenic and fluorine.
It is amazing how the only place in the North Eastern region still continues without a modern sewage system, pushing all the burden onto the Bahini-Bharalu and other natural waterways, which were once rich in flora and in wildlife and drinking water, which pass through the city. . This question must be settled “now or never”.
Despite the company’s attempts, keeping the city clean proved nearly impossible. Residents’ inability to own their city, lack of interest and cooperation with society, habit of blaming only the government agency, their ignorance and unwillingness to learn about solid waste segregation, compounded by a system improper collection, disposal and recycling, resulted in a mess of garbage.
(The author is a senior consultant surgeon at Marwari HospitalsGuwahati, and resident of Kahilipara)
The long-awaited Guwahati Municipal Corporation elections are fast approaching. Those who come to power to take charge of the city will face difficult challenges – from the question of unplanned growth from a city to a city with an unusual population explosion to the hasty transfer of capital without planning.
The first and main issue that the new committee will have to address is that of drinking water. Even knowing well that water is life, the people at the controls seem to play the violin. There is hardly any expansion of the water supply network beyond what existed in “Guwahati town”. According to the facts, only 30-40% of residents are blessed with running water, many of them making their own arrangements, while those who cannot depend on natural waterways, whose most are high in arsenic and fluorine.
It is amazing how the only place in the North Eastern region still continues without a modern sewage system, pushing all the burden onto the Bahini-Bharalu and other natural waterways, which were once rich in flora and in wildlife and drinking water, which pass through the city. . This question must be settled “now or never”.
Despite the company’s attempts, keeping the city clean proved nearly impossible. Residents’ inability to own their city, lack of interest and cooperation with society, habit of blaming only the government agency, their ignorance and unwillingness to learn about solid waste segregation, compounded by a system improper collection, disposal and recycling, resulted in a mess of garbage.
(The author is a senior consultant surgeon at Marwari HospitalsGuwahati, and resident of Kahilipara)