With potable water being delivered daily to the homes – a service very rarely available throughout the city - the residents of Athgaon in Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) Ward No 8 feel more or less satisfied with the performance of the GMC.
In a survey conducted by G Plus, 50 families of the ward were asked questions on 14 parameters of living standards, of which, all the respondents unanimously said that they receive regular water at their homes.
“At times, the quantity of water is lesser than normal, but at least we receive water here. I have friends who stay in Ganeshguri and Ulubari areas and they complain of not receiving GMC water at their homes at all. All of them have resorted to groundwater or buy it from outside,” Meena Jain, a resident here, said.
Jain is not the only beneficiary as Akash Maheshwari, who lives in a residential complex here said, “I have noticed that most of the residential complexes in the city get its water from underground tube-wells. Ours, however, is mainly dependent on the water that is supplied by GMC. We also have a deep tube well, but 70 per cent of the water comes from GMC.”
The residents of Athgaon are among the fortunate 30 per cent of the city who receive water in their locality while the rest of the city is still waiting for the three water projects – South Central Guwahati, East Guwahati and West Guwahati – to be completed.
This apart, in 10 other categories too, either the majority of the respondents or at least half the residents expressed satisfaction on the services they receive.
These include a few of the major services provided by the GMC such as garbage collection, streetlight, thwarting water logging, maintaining roads etc.
In the survey, except one, all the respondents expressed satisfaction with the door-to-door garbage collection services of which, 29 respondents (58 per cent) said that it is done daily while 20 others (40 per cent) said that garbage is collected at least twice a week.
A big help to the municipal corporation, however, is the proactive NGO, Athgaon Development and Welfare Association (ADWA), that has been working in the ward since 1994.
The association today has six carts manned by around 25 workers and caters to more than 200 shops and residential establishments disposing garbage in two shifts - day and evening.
The move succeeded in converting Athgaon into one of the most self-sufficient wards under GMC so much so that the incumbent mayor, Mrigen Sarania, after taking charge of GMC last year, had lauded the efforts of the association and extended every help to the ward, one of the largest in the city.
Besides garbage collection, the NGO also mends the roads, a move that has been appreciated by the residents here, as is evident from the survey.
48 respondents said that road conditions are average while one said they were very good while only one said they were bad. None responded with “pathetic” road condition.
Regarding water logging, a problem that plagues almost all the wards of the city, 42 respondents (84 per cent) said that water logging is not a problem here while the rest 8 respondents (16 per cent) were of the opinion that the problem is confined to a few particular lanes only.
Lack of parking space, the throbbing raw nerve of Athgaon
Even though the residents of Athgaon have lauded the efforts of GMC in providing the basic living services, the lack of parking space remains a perennial problem in this heavily developed part of the city.
Located at the heart of the city, Athgaon, that connects east and west Guwahati, with Paltan Bazar to its east and Bharalumukh to its west, has been one of the major commercial areas of the city and has developed over the years along with the Fancy Bazar.
All the residents unanimously said that they don’t have parking space. The problem here are, however, two-pronged – a slack in the government functioning and disproportionate growth of the area.
Back in 1960s-70s, when Fancy Bazar mostly housed grocery and clothes markets, Athgaon, being the connecting road to lower Assam from Paltan Bazar railway station, had developed in to a commercial joint providing every motor parts related requirement to the vehicles travelling through. This area also served as the most suitable residential area for the traders and as an area for having godowns of products as Fancy Bazar was already crowded.
The pace of infrastructural development, however, could not match the area’s commercial development and by the mid 1990’s, it started getting crowded which has only become worse over the subsequent years.
“We have been parking our vehicles on the road over the last few decades. This is mostly because most of the houses here are old and don’t have parking spaces. And now, so many shops and houses have been established here that there are hardly any parking spaces. People have to park their vehicles at as far as Paltan Bazar and Machkhowa to reach here,” Shubham Sharma, a resident said.
Regarding the government’s lag, the residents pointed out the delay in the multi-level parking lot project in which the old jail in Fancy Bazar was to be converted into an open space and a parking lot.
“Had that project been completed, our parking problem would have been solved,” another resident, Vijay Soni, said.
The infrastructural constraints are not just confined to parking problems, but are reflected in to the regular traffic congestions too.
20 respondents (40 per cent) said the roads are occasionally crowded while a majority of 30 respondents (60 per cent) said that the traffic condition is pathetic.
The residents also expressed dissatisfaction unanimously regarding the number of public toilets in the area.
Responses by residents:
Councillor cites lack of space as reason behind congestion
Sunita Bhilwaria, the councillor of Ward No 8, in tandem with the residents, said that delayed projects and unplanned expansion has made the place very congested.
“I had been urging the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority to complete the parking lot works for a long time now. But there are a few very genuine reasons why this project has been delayed. Once the project gets completed, we can finally have a holistic solution to the problem,” Bhilwaria said.
Regarding traffic too she was of the opinion that it’s related to the parking problem.
“Once we have a parking solution, we will urge the government to turn this area into a no parking zone. Now, more than often due to faulty or double parking, the roads have become narrower which leads to traffic congestion. Once that is solved, smoother commutation will be possible,” Bhilwariya added.
