Tezpur grapples with civic problems

From a Correspondent

Tezpur, Dec 12: Tezpur is the administrative headquarters of Sonitpur district. It attracts every visitor with its beautiful parks, hillocks, scenery and well-established hotels.

 The town, considered as the cultural capital of Assam, has been plagued by various civic

problems like deplorable condition of all the connecting roads within the town, garbage dumping, water logging, haphazard construction of buildings for both residential and business purposes and traffic jam. During the last couple of years, the  people here along with both the domestic and foreign tourists, have totally failed to enjoy proper civic amenities as besides other issues, all the connecting roads within Tezpur town are in a pathetic condition,  posing a serious threat to vehicular traffic and pedestrians. Knee-deep potholes can be found in most of the roads because of which frequent accidents and traffic jam have become common here in the recent past.

A number of roads have been recently constructed like Police Reserve Road, Hazarapar Road, Chandmari Road and NB Road. Moreover, the roads connecting from NT Road,  Malaria Office, CRPF Camp, AGP office, BSNL office, Gurukul School, Joimoti Play Ground, Gogoi Nursing Home, Kumargaon mgarh, Chandmari mgarh, Chandmari Market, TB Hospital, Fire Brigade, Kaklata Smriti Uddyan via Trebeni Point are in such a deplorable condition that road mishaps have become commonplace.

The road construction works come under the purview of PWD but the charge was taken over by the Tezpur Municipality Board. Though repair work of some of these roads are on, conscious citizens here have alleged that sub-standard work has been done by the contractors engaged in the work to siphon off the allotted funds in nexus with the civic body.

The cries of Tezpur residents on various issues have fallen on deaf ears. Though the Tezpur Municipality Board (TMB) often claims achievement in the field of developmental works of the town, the common people are grappling with dusty broken roads, unhygienic liquid leaking out along with contamited rainwater from the blocked draige system and rotten garbage lying openly at the roadside at various places, which together pose serious health hazards.

On the other hand, the solid waste magement system established with the expenditure of crores of rupees at Balichapori, Morabharali here in 2005 to make Tezpur a garbage free city has remained a non starter till date.  Because of these civic problems, Tezpur is fast losing its past glory. The people have urged the authority concerned to address these grievances and restore the glory of the historic town.