Letters to the Editor

A Job Well Done

This refers to your open letter to the Chief Minister of Assam as carried your esteemed daily on its front page last week. The letter rightly reflects the mood of the people of the State – what they feel in the matter of policy implementation.

Chief Minister Sarbanda Sonowal has been governing the State with the right intention in his mind, but in many areas there are problems that remain unsolved. The condition of our tiol and state highways is very bad. Guwahati’s traffic problem is mounting by the day. Same is the case with filth and stench in the city that aspires to be the hub of activities in so far as the Government of India’s Act East Policy is concerned. It faces an acute water crisis as you have rightly pointed out.

But perhaps the worst is in the case of detection and deportation of illegal Bangladeshis. Their population has not diminished. Thanks to the rampancy of polygamy among them, their population growth is abnormally high. As your editorials have kept repeating, the high rate of population boom among Muslims in Assam is not due to any such high rate among indigenous Muslims but because of the practice of polygamy among the immigrants of Bangladeshi descent. Besides, as they are a vote bank for parties like Congress and AIUDF, they enjoy political shield and patroge. Even the judiciary has said that they are already kingmakers in the State, mainly in districts like Barpeta, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Karimganj, Cachar, gaon and Darrang. This is alarming. They are also involved in crimes of various kinds, including rape and murder as alleged time and again.

The Chief Minister is duty-bound to save Assam from the vicious grip of those kingmakers. The sons of the soil of Assam cannot be allowed to suffer in a mini-Bangladesh of fatics.

I congratulate The Sentinel once again for its open and bold letter to the State Chief Minister. It takes courage and honesty of purpose to write such things. Keep it up. A job well done.

Dipu Baruah,

Tezpur.

PM's Outlook and Guwahati

Recently, in his mann ki baat radio programme, Prime Minister rendra Modi urged people to be more conscious about preventive healthcare because prevention is not only beneficial for him but also for his family. He said the government has set the target of 2025 for the total eradication of TB. He also said a healthy India and a clean India are supplementary to each other. This is a welcome outlook.

As I was going through the newspapers that day that had covered his address to the tion prominently, suddenly my beloved city, Guwahati, came to my mind. It is a filthy city, perhaps the worst in the country as far as garbage magement is concerned. Recently I came across a newspaper report that said that the Centre had made a rule for garbage magement to be followed by every State. I don’t know where Assam stands. But what I surely know is that garbage is not being maged here. There are no systematic ways of garbage disposal. You visit any vegetable and fish market, and you will come across the reality I am speaking of.

Here goes a request to the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) to do something concrete to save the people of the city from filth, stench and disease.

Rashmita Das,

Beltola, Guwahati.