OUR CORRESPONDENT
JORHAT: With the inauguration of the shining new glass-fronted Integrated District Commissioner’s office and administrative block by Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at Cinnamara here today, Jorhat shed a part of its colonial past with the curtains being pulled down on the historic ‘Ronga Bhawan’ in the heart of the town.
Addressing a large gathering at the inaugural ceremony, the Chief Minister referred to a request made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in which the Prime Minister asked the people to gradually move away from all institutions and structures that remind them of the British legacy and subservience, 75 years after independence.
“The new administrative block is one such move which can be considered as leaving our colonial legacy behind to usher in a new era where the administration will be carried out from a building constructed in independent India, thereby leaving behind a legacy which reminds us of servitude and dependence,” the Chief Minister stressed.
Referring to the old District Commissioner’s office complex, the CM said that it had been built in 1911–1912 and the administrative complex had been shifted from Rangpur to Jorhat by the first British deputy commissioner in Jorhat, Major A Playfair, who declared Jorhat as the administrative headquarters of the undivided Sivasagar district in that year.
It may be mentioned that the capital of the Ahom kingdom was shifted from Rangpur, at present in the Sivasagar district, to Jorhat in 1794. In 1983 the building transitioned into the office of the District Commissioner when Jorhat was officially carved out as a separate, independent district on July 1, 1983.
CM Dr Sarma stated that, in addition to the new state-of-the-art administrative complex, another building would be constructed nearby to provide health, education, and other services, allowing people to complete all their tasks in one location instead of having to visit multiple offices. The CM said that two such buildings housing all the directorates had been erected in Dispur and that such integrated complexes would be erected in other districts as well.
The CM said that the public properties which would be abandoned thereafter could be put to other uses as the need arose or turned into parks and museums, as would the old Jorhat administrative complex.
Earlier the Chief Minister dedicated to the state the new two-lane railway overbridge at Cinnamara, constructed at a cost of Rs 65 crore. He said that this rail overbridge, which had a 1.5 m walkway, would facilitate the smooth flow of traffic on the Jorhat-Mariani road right up to Mokokchung in Nagaland. He said that this was the fourth overbridge/flyover built by his government in Jorhat since 2023, ushering in an era of smooth road communication.
The Chief Minister also inaugurated a Rs 3.5 crore school building of the Luitporiya Mising Ucchatar Madhyamik Bidyalaya in Jorhat.
CM Dr Sarma said that the government has committed approximately Rs. 7,500 crore towards the construction of school buildings, describing the scale of investment as unprecedented in Assam’s education sector since independence. The initiative, he said, would substantially strengthen the infrastructure supporting the state’s education system.
Highlighting the transformation underway in Jorhat, the Chief Minister said that several major development projects have been implemented in the district over the past five years. The Lachit Maidam and Cultural Project, constructed at a cost of Rs. 250 crore, has emerged as a major tourist destination. Swaraj Udyan, developed at a cost of Rs. 159 crore over around 175 bighas of land adjacent to Jorhat Central Jail, has also received a positive public response.
He said that a public auditorium is being constructed at Cinnamara at a cost of Rs. 20 crore, while a new academic building of Assam’s first women’s university is being constructed at Teok. The Jorhat water supply project is also progressing rapidly. Responding to a proposal of MLA Hitendra Nath Goswami, the Chief Minister announced that beautification works would be undertaken along the banks of the Bhogdoi River.
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