Decongesting Guwahati

A stitch in time saves nine. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s announcement of building a futuristic satellite township at Jagiroad to decongest Guwahati will be crucial in making the capital city sustainable. The proposed township will have all the amenities to cater to the needs of employees of a semiconductor plant that is coming up at Jagiroad. The state government hopes that it will help reduce population pressure in Guwahati, which is grappling with a growing population beyond its carrying capacity. Traffic bottlenecks along the hilly stretch between Khanapara and Jagiroad will require special attention to achieve the objectives optimally. A planned satellite township puts a brake on the unplanned expansion of a major city like Guwahati. The population of Guwahati is projected to surpass two million in 2025, according to the Master Plan of the city prepared in 2009. Due to the failure to implement land use zoning strictly in accordance with the Master Plan, haphazard and unplanned expansion continued. This resulted in chaotic mixed-use development of the city areas, in which residential, commercial, and retail spaces got overlapped without proper road and drainage and planned layouts. Due to insufficient carriageway along the main thoroughfares and along the arterial roads, traffic congestion has become worse with the exponential rise in private vehicles. The situation has reached a stage where the introduction of a new fleet of public transport vehicles has remained inadequate to decongest the roads. The development of integrated residential, commercial, and retail spaces planned meticulously with an adequate road network, parking space, and proper waste management in the proposed township can be expected to attract large commercial and service sector projects like shopping malls, multiplexes, hotels, hospitals, etc. Guwahati will feel the benefits immediately as the demand for unplanned conversion of residential spaces into large commercial spaces declines. Lessons must be learned from the encroachment of city hills and wetlands to cater to the housing needs of ever-increasing numbers of service sector employees and workers, which has aggravated artificial flooding and landslide problems. The proposed township having adequate housing facilities for service sector workers in addition to employees of the upcoming semiconductor plant will be crucial to preventing unauthorized and indiscriminate hill cutting on the surrounding hills. Guwahati being the capital city, the flow of traffic from the proposed township in Jagiroad for occasional shopping, dining, healthcare needs, and visiting government offices will continue even after the township has all the amenities. Another major project to decongest Guwahati is the proposed construction of a Ring Road to bypass major traffic from the West Bengal/Bihar side and bound for Silchar, Tripura, Nagaland, and Mizoram entering the city. As part of the project, a 55-kilometre-long road with a 3-kilometre bridge over the River Brahmaputra connecting Kuruwa in North Guwahati and Narengi is to be constructed to divert such traffic from Baihata Chariali to Sonapur on the city outskirts. As part of this ambitious project, a 17-km-long, six-lane Jalukbari-Basistha stretch has already been commissioned. The conversion of a four-lane bypass into a six-lane bypass, including the construction of four flyovers and an underpass, was completed five months ahead of the target date. The pace at which the construction work was completed has brightened hopes for the expansion of the 10-kilometre stretch of Basistha-Jorabat of the project into a six-lane highway in time. The completion of the entire Guwahati Ring Road project will ease traffic congestion in the city and the bypass. This will allow city authorities to increase the fleet of public transport for better commuting within the city. The introduction of more buses without decongesting the city is not going to achieve the desired objectives of reducing private vehicles on city roads. The buses move at a snail’s pace on account of traffic congestion. Therefore, private mobility solutions are still the favourite mode for the majority of city residents as well as the floating population, and they continue to choke the busy roads during peak hours. The rapid development of Amingaon and North Guwahati into urban settlements has also gradually reduced the pressure on Guwahati city, allowing the authorities to plan for the development of greater Guwahati areas. Urbanization of areas included in the Greater Guwahati area is taking place at a faster pace, which is critical to decongesting the capital city. However, decongesting the areas along the main thoroughfares alone is not going to bring much change to overall city life if interior lanes and bylanes continue to be narrow. Public parking space for private vehicles is a major deficiency in the planning process for the city. Unless this problem is addressed, decongesting the bypasses is not going to bring sustainable solution to Guwahati’s traffic woes. Allowing roadside parking reduces carriageways, making it difficult for buses and other modes of public transport to move faster. Smart and out-of-the-box parking solutions must be found to address it. Along with the development of satellite townships, comprehensive planning for the main city is also crucial to decongest it.