The mobility of people and goods is a critical indicator of a city’s growth. Cities prioritising sustainable mobility improve liveability, as it reduces pollution by reducing average commuting time and makes key services like jobs, educational institutions and hospitals easily accessible within a definite travel time. The jurisdictional limit of Guwahati and the population of the capital city have increased manifold, which pushed the demand for urban mobility solutions. As public transport services cannot be stretched beyond their limit to cover both jurisdictional expansion and cater to population growth, private mobility solutions fill the vacuum. The private mobility solution comes at the cost of worsening traffic congestion and increasing vehicular pollution. Private mobility dominating the city’s transport system leads to disparity in accessibility of key services depending on income levels, with higher-income groups managing to access those in less transit time, and lower-income groups are compelled to depend on overcrowded and slow-moving public transport to avail the same services. As the city’s population is poised to cross three million from the current one million mark, prioritising Transit Orientated Development (TOD) that integrates land use and transport planning is the pragmatic solution. TOD aims to develop planned sustainable along mass transit by planning growth of residential areas and office complexes closer to mass transit. The trend in city’s expansion has been such that residential or commercial complexes are developed in an area without much planning about transportation or key services such as schools, hospitals and offices. In the absence of public transport, which was missing during development of these areas, the residents of these places have no alternative but to buy their own vehicle depending upon their income level. Besides, to access the key services, residents have to travel to those areas where these services are available. Even when public transport is introduced in the newly developed areas, the roads are already chock-a-block with mixed modes of traffic dominated by two-wheelers and small cars. Due to the presence of mixed types of business establishments, carriage vans of different sizes also contribute to the traffic mess. With real estate development outpacing city land use planning implementation, the roads connecting areas with multi-storey apartment complexes become major transit corridors within the expanded city jurisdiction. TOD strategy incorporates mixed land use development, non-motorised transportation, prioritising pedestrian facilities and supporting a walk-to-work culture. For such a strategy to be effective, the establishment of offices, hospitals, and schools to cater to the requirements of the population must happen simultaneously in a planned manner when the city authorities grant permission to large residential complexes or clusters of business establishments such as shopping malls, multiplexes, etc. Retrofitting TOD in Guwahati calls for earmarking spaces and promoting development of key services in these areas with mixed land use so that transport strategies of non-motorised transport, such as bicycles, cycle rickshaws or walking, can be adopted by local residents. Once this happens, use of private vehicles to access the basic services will significantly reduce, which ultimately will also bring down the traffic load on busy city roads where most schools, hospitals, and offices are concentrated. Availability of basic services close to their residences will also allow people with lower incomes to access them, as they will not be required to travel in overcrowded and slow-moving public transport to avail themselves of those. Without such significant land use planning, efforts to improve the efficiency of public transport simply by introducing modern buses cannot work in this capital city, which has accumulated a mess of unplanned growth. Even the introduction of electric buses or the replacement of the entire fleet of city buses that run on diesel with electric vehicles will not have any significant impact on air quality already worsened by vehicular emission due to traffic congestion and more private vehicles hitting the city roads. The emerging situation calls for making it mandatory for the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority not to grant permission for the construction of multi-storeyed residential complexes or large commercial establishments without incorporating the simultaneous growth of quality educational institutions, including institutions running professional courses, parks for recreation, community halls for marriage and other social functions, shopping malls, utility centres, hospitals and nursing homes so that the development of public transport can also be planned. Whenever new proposals for the establishment of these key services are submitted to GMDA and other regulatory authorities, it is important to ensure that areas which lack these and have spaces for their development are prioritised and the permission is not granted in an area where the project developer wants but is already saturated with the same services. Lessons must be learnt from the failure to implement the past master plans for enforcement of land use as had been planned. Putting in place a strong oversight mechanism for the building permission system has become an urgent necessity. Development of a dashboard showing all basic data in each ward is essential to facilitate the oversight authorities taking rational decisions.