Even as the Sivasagar district is struggling to recover from the unprecedented flash floods which it faced in mid-July, there is excellent news: a proposal for the historic Rangpur-Sivasagar Ensemble, comprising a series of relics reflecting the golden age of the Ahom era, has been submitted for consideration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With only about a year remaining until the 800th anniversary of the illustrious Ahom kingdom’s foundation, the proposal has been made. As Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma has said, the historic Rangpur-Sivasagar complex not only represents the capital of the glorious Ahom dynasty, which ruled the Brahmaputra Valley for six centuries, but also resonates with the architectural, cultural and technological legacy of the Ahom kingdom, including several iconic monuments. India’s Permanent Mission to UNESCO formally submitted the proposal to UNESCO under its World Heritage criteria (iii) and (iv). It is important to note that UNESCO’s World Heritage criteria (iii) state that for a site or property to be considered for recognition, it must “bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilisation that is living or has disappeared.” Criteria (iv) states that a site can be considered for World Heritage status if it is “an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological group, or landscape that shows an important part of human history.” Rangpur-Sivasagar houses Assam’s finest Ahom temples, palaces, water tanks and engineering marvels, which include the Rang-ghar, the oldest surviving amphitheatre of Asia. Once accepted and inscribed by UNESCO, the Rangpur-Sivasagar ensemble will add to the global importance of a larger area where the Charaideo Moidams—declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024—exist. Originally built in 1746 during the reign of Swargadeo Pramatta Singha, the Rang-ghar is a wonderful two-storey building that once served as an amphitheatre or the royal sports pavilion. Not very far away from the Rang-ghar is the Talatal-ghar complex, the royal palace constructed when Swargadeo Rudra Singha founded the new capital at Rangpur in 1698. In modern-day Sivasagar, on the other hand, stands a number of temples built during the Ahom era, which include the Shiva-doul, Devi-doul and Vishnu-doul, in addition to the Sivasagar Bar-pukhuri, said to be the largest man-made tank on earth. While the present government must be praised for putting up the proposal to consider Rangpur-Sivasagar as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the very news of the proposal itself is a huge image booster for the historic city from a tourism perspective. With the tourism season set to begin in another month or so, it would now be proper for the government to take immediate steps to improve the flood-ravaged roads connecting Sivasagar and Charaideo with Jorhat and Dibrugarh, the two airports serving the historic city. A massive clean-up drive, accompanied by an order declaring Sivasagar a ‘No Plastic’ city, is likely necessary.