Why Can’t Guwahati Emulate Kolkata?

GUWAHATI: Kolkata, the City of Joy is the nearest metro for Guwahati. But those sitting in Dispur instead of looking and observing the transformation of Kolkata into one of the best modern cities in India, are building castles in the air by claiming to develop Guwahati in the line of Shanghai or Bangkok.

The tragic reality is that Guwahati can neither become Shanghai or Bangkok. If Guwahati can do half of things that Kolkata has done in the recent years, the city will become a better place to live. There are many reasons to take Kolkata as a role model for Dispur to develop Guwahati into a modern city.

Soon after the end of winter season Kolkata literally burns under the blazing Sun and mercury continues to soar like anything. But the residents of the city have nothing much to complain since they can beat the heat by remaining indoor due uninterrupted power supply. Power cuts or load shedding has become a thing of the past in Kolkata. But in Guwahati despite being considered as the gateway to South East Asia load shedding has become a perennial problem.

Unlike Guwahati, residents of Kolkata hardly hit the streets in protest against severe scarcity of drinking water. Many from Kolkata during their visits to Guwahati in the past raised the simple question as how could drinking water crisis be so severe here when the mighty Brahmaputra passes through the heart of the city. While the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, Public Health Engineering and Assam Urban Water Supply & Sewerage Board have miserably failed to provide minimum water supply to growing population of Guwahati, the fate of the multi-crore water supply projects to provide 24X7 water supply, is hanging in balance for the past few years. Nobody when these ambitious projects will see the light of the day.

Despite even increasing number of private and public vehicles Kolkata has managed to script a success story in excellent traffic management. The Kolkata traffic police has now night patrolling, deploying traffic sergeants and many junior cops to keep an eye on vehicles between 11pm and 4am.The idea is to increase the visibility of traffic police on the roads at night so that motorists think twice before breaking a rule. But in Guwahati forget about night patrolling, traffic personnel are hardly seen at many important junctions and roads even during the daytime.

Traffic management has also become easier in Kolkata due to excellent roads and flyovers across the city. Even in interior localities and municipal wards people can walk and drive on well built roads.

While Dispur is still in a planning stage to develop medical tourism in Guwahati by creating highly advanced healthcare facilities, Kolkata has already been successful in attracting huge number of patients from North East as well neighbouring South East Asian countries due to availability of the best healthcare facilities.

It will not be exaggeration to say that Guwahati has become a city of mosquitoes. While fogging is rarely seen in a very few areas in Guwahati that too at a long interval, fogging has almost become a regular affair in Kolkata to keep mosquitoes and many other health hazards away.

And finally cleanliness & hygiene of Kolkata has added more joys to the City of Joy. There is a round the clock system to lift garbage from every nook and corner of the city. But garbage and other dirty materials on roads and other important sites, are common sights in Ghy.

So, it is high time for the policy and law makers in Dispur to visit the nearby Kolkata instead of visiting foreign cities at the cost of the State exchequer, to learn the art of developing Ghy into a modern city in the true sense of the term.

Also Read: Buddha Air Starts Its Journey From Kolkata To Kathmandu