Guwahati is fast turning into a city of flyovers. While the Nilachal Flyover, running a length of 2.63 km, was opened for traffic a couple of months ago in the Maligaon area of the city, the next flyover, which is nearing completion on RG Barua Road, is being inaugurated in the next few days. With the volume of traffic and number of vehicles increasing manifold in the past few years, the only option left for the authorities to manage the growing chaos is to construct flyovers in order to ease the situation on the difficult portions of the city roads. Guwahati, one must accept, is a city that has ended up in total chaos and disorder, primarily due to the lack of foresight when the capital of Assam had to shift from Shillong in the wake of the creation of Meghalaya in the early 1970s. Guwahati at that time was full of open spaces and wetlands. The then government, however, lacked vision and failed to develop Guwahati into a well-planned city. The capital complex could have been spaciously developed, and the roads of the city could have been widened within the first decade of shifting of the capital, if only the then government had the basic concept of looking at the future. While Assam is well-known for making stop-gap and temporary arrangements in most aspects, the opportunity to develop Guwahati into a beautiful and livable city was primarily missed because of this attitude and mindset. It is said that the then government had, in the 1970s, returned to the Centre more than fifty percent of the amount that New Delhi had provided for the creation of a new state capital. During the same period, states like Odisha, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh not only fully utilised the central grant but also developed well-planned capital complexes. In the subsequent decades, successive governments have failed to ease the problems faced by Guwahati and its citizens. While traffic management and road planning are only one issue, successive regimes have also miserably failed to protect the wonderful wetlands and the beautiful green hills that have remained part of Guwahati since time immemorial. Thus, Guwahati has remained a sad story for all time.