The Assam Tribune Analysis
23-11-2020
ARTICLE CONTENTS
Ayurveda PG practitioners to be trained on surgical procedures
NASA rover helps scientists find signs of megafloods on Mars
Artificial incubation facility for vultures
Naval drill
RBI record
COVID-19 vaccine distribution faces logistics challenges’
RBI sets world record with over 1 mn Twitter followers
GST Council panel for 2-pronged strategy to curb fake invoices
Automation of cargo clearance processes to improve trade facilitation: ADB
RBI record
EDITORIAL DISCUSSION
Covid-19 and our immediate future
Miles to go
Decongesting Guwahati city
GENERAL STUDIES 2: GOVERANCE
1. Ayurveda PG practitioners to be trained on surgical procedures
The government has issued a notification which authorises postgraduate practitioners in
specified streams of Ayurveda to be trained to perform surgical procedures such as excisions of
benign tumours, amputation of gangrene, nasal and cataract surgeries.
The notification by the Central Council of Indian Medicine, a statutory body under the AYUSH
Ministry to regulate the Indian systems of medicine, listed 39 general surgery procedures and
around 19 procedures involving the eye, ear, nose and throat by amending the Indian Medicine
Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016.
“These regulations may be called the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda
Education) Amendment Regulations, 2020. “In the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post
Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016, in regulation 10, after sub-regulation (8), the
following sub-regulation shall be inserted, namely – during the period of study, the PG scholar
of Shalya and Shalakya shall be practically trained to acquaint with as well as to independently
perform the following activities so that after completion of his PG degree, he is able to perform
the following procedures independently,” it read.
AYUSH Ministry Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha said the notification by the CCIM does not
amount to any policy deviation or any new decision. “This notification is more of the nature of a
clarification. It streamlines the existing regulation relating to post graduate education in
Ayurveda with respect to the specified procedures. “Further, the notification does not open up
the entire field of surgery to Ayurveda practitioners and specifies a set of surgical procedures. It
outlines that not all postgraduates of Ayurveda can perform these procedures. Only those
specialized in Shalya and Shalakya are allowed to perform these surgical procedures,” Kotecha
said.
Chairman of Board of Governors, CCIM, Vaidya Jayant Devpujari clarified that these surgical
procedures are being performed in Ayurveda institutes for over 20 years and the notification
legalises them. “The purpose of bringing out the notification is also to set boundaries by
specifying the list of procedures so that practitioners restrict themselves to the set of surgical
procedures as mentioned in the regulation,” Devpujari said.
According to the November 20 gazette notification, the procedures listed include removal of
metallic and non-metallic foreign bodies from non-vital organs, excision of simple cyst or benign
tumours (lipoma, fibroma, schwanoma, etc.) of non-vital organs, amputation of gangrene,
traumatic wound management, foreign body removal from stomach, squint surgery, cataract
surgery and functional endoscopic sinus surgery.
GENERAL STUDIES 3: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
1. NASA rover helps scientists find signs of megafloods on Mars
Analysing data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover, scientists have found that floods of
unimaginable magnitude once washed through Gale Crater on Mars’ equator around four
billion years ago.
The finding, published in the journal Scientific Reports, hints at the possibility that life may have
existed on the Red Planet. The raging megaflood – likely touched off by the heat of a meteoritic
impact, which unleashed ice stored on the Martian surface – set up gigantic ripples that are
telltale geologic structuresfamiliar to scientists on Earth.
“We identified megafloods for the first time using detailed sedimentological data observed by
the rover Curiosity,” said co-author Alberto Fairen, a visiting astrobiologist at Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York.
“Deposits left behind by megafloods had not been previously identified with orbiter data.”
As is the case on Earth, geological features, including the work of water and wind have been
frozen in time on Mars for about four billion years. These features convey processes that
shaped the surface of both planets in the past. This case includes the occurrence of giant
waveshaped features in sedimentary layers of Gale crater, often called “megaripples” or
antidunes that are about 30-feet high and spaced about 450 feet apart, according to study lead
author Ezat Heydari, Professor of Physics at Jackson State University in Mississippi, US.
The antidunes are indicative of flowing megafloods at the bottom of Mars’ Gale Crater about
four billion years ago, which are identical to the features formed by melting ice on Earth about
two million years ago, Heydari said.
GENERAL STUDIES 3: ENVIRONMENT
1. Artificial incubation facility for vultures
The Madhya Pradesh forest department is thinking of developing an artificial incubation facility
for vultures at a conservation centre here to revive the population of these scavenging birds, an
official said.
As per the bird count done in Madhya Pradesh in 2019, the state had 8,397 vultures, the
highest among other states in India, Bhopal-based Van Vihar National Park’s deputy director AK
Jain told PTI.
The population of vultures, which are of great value as scavengers as they eat dead animals,
declined alarmingly about two decades ago and they faced the threat of extinction, he said.
A vulture conservation and breeding centre came up in Kerwa area here in 2013 and it is being
run jointly by the Bombay Natural History Society and the MP government.
“About three or four rooms would be needed for the artificial egg incubation facility at a cost of
around Rs 4 to 5 lakh. We are seriously thinking of developing the facility at the conservation
and breeding centre,” Jain said.
GENERAL STUDIES 3: SECURITY
1. Naval drill
The Indian Navy is participating in the twoday trilateral maritime exercise SITMEX-20 in the
Andaman Sea along with the navies of Singapore and Thailand that began on Sunday, senior
military officials here said.
GENERAL STUDIES 3: ECONOMY
1. RBI record
With one million Twitter followers, the RBI has become the first central bank in the world to
reach this milestone. The RBI has beaten the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank on
Twitter by emerging as the most popular central bank.
2. COVID-19 vaccine distribution faces logistics challenges’
Observing that immunisation against COVID-19 involved several challenges, including logistics
and supply chain for distribution of vaccines in the country, an expert has said there cannot be
any lowering of guard on prevention of virus spread till a robust vaccine was available.
While the government would do its job on procurement and distribution, the focus should be
on keeping the spread under check and studying the virus for having more effective antiviral
drugs till a vaccine was available, said Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director of the CSIR-Centre for Cellular
and Molecular Biology (CCMB).
Besides production, the other challenges for COVID-19 vaccine distribution were logistics and
supply. There is no adult vaccination programme in the country except tetanus for pregnant
women. Even immunisation of children had its share of difficulties with many people not
vaccinating, he said.
Most vaccines may require at least two doses, possibly the second one to be administered after
a certain number of days, which increases difficulties in logistics and supply.
The vaccines of some companies require a minus 70 degree cold chain which would be tough to
arrange beyond major cities, Mishra said.
In addition, a major concern was that it would not be known till two or three years whether a
vaccine was really good or not for long term protection, he noted. Meanwhile, the CSIR is in the
process of developing a proof of concept for a vaccine candidate for COVID- 19 to be handed
over to Aurobindo Pharma for further process if it shows initial promise.
The CSIR is aiming to reach “some conclusion” in the endeavour in about three months, Mishra
said. “We are aiming that in about three months, we should reach some conclusion. So, we are
trying three different platforms, slightly different compared to what many others are trying.
Even if one or two of them are good, then Aurobindo will take it further for safety and trial.
Maybe, after 3-4 months, we will know which one of these if any, we can take further,” he said.
On some pharma companies claiming efficacy of 90 per cent about the vaccines developed by
them for COVID-19 and whether they had adequate time to conduct the tests, he said data
should be published on the tests. The size of the data appears to be small, he said.
The protection from the virus should before a long time then only it is of real use, Mishra
added. Presently, at least three vaccine candidates are under clinical trials in the country. The
Serum Institute of India is conducting phase-3 trial of the Oxford vaccine, while that of the
indigenously developed COVAXIN of Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of
Medical Research (ICMR) has already begun.
Dr Reddy’s Laboratories would conduct the phase 2/3 human clinical trials of the Russian
COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, in India. Also, the Biological E Ltd has started Phase I/II clinical trial
of its COVID-19 sub-unit vaccine candidate in India.
3. RBI sets world record with over 1 mn Twitter followers
In a first among central banks, the Reserve Bank of India has become the first monetary
authority in the world to have more than 1 million followers on its official Twitter handle.
Despite much less monetary firepower, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has beaten the world’s
most powerful central banks – the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank – on
Twitter by a wide margin, emerging as the most popular central bank on the microblogging site
with over 1 million followers.
As of today, the RBI handle is followed by as many as 10,00,513 people around the world. The
achievement is impressive as the 85-year-old Reserve Bank was also a latecomer to the world
of Twitter as it created the account only in January 2012.
According to the latest information available on the RBI’s Twitter handle ‘@RBI’, the number of
followers has increased from 9.66 lakh on September 27, 2020 to over 10 lakh as of today. “RBI
Twitter account reaches 1 million followers today. A new milestone. Congratulations to all my
colleagues in RBI,” Governor Shaktikanta Das tweeted today.
At the second slot is the much lesser known central bank of Mexico (Banco de Mexico) with
7.74 lakh followers, followed by Bank of Indonesia (7.57 lakh). The US Federal Reserve, the
world’s most powerful central bank, has only 6.77 lakh followers, placing it at a distant fourth
slot.
With 5.91 lakh followers the Frankfurt-headquartered European Central Bank, the second most
powerful monetary authority in the world, comes fifth.
At the sixth rank is the Central Bank of Brazil with 3.82 lakh followers and the Bank of England is
at a distant seventh with 3.17 lakh followers. The Bank of Canada comes next with 1.80 lakh
and the State Bank of Pakistan is the ninth largest with 1.16 lakh followers. At the tenth slot is
the Reserve Bank of Australia with 49,200 followers.
The central bank of France has just about 37,100 followers, while the Deutsche Bundesbank has
around 30,000 followers. The third most powerful monetary authority, the Bank of Japan, has
only 28,900 followers on its Twitter account.
The US Fed joined Twitter in March 2009, while the ECB has been active on the microblogging
site since October 2009.
4. GST Council panel for 2-pronged strategy to curb fake invoices
The Law Committee of the GST Council has suggested a two-pronged strategy to tackle the
issue of fake invoices, sources said. According to people in the know, the panel has
recommended that new or fresh registrations in GST may adopt an Aadhaar-like registration
process under which new registration can be done online with live photo and use of biometrics
with due verification of documents.
Such facilities can be provided at banks, post offices, and GST Seva Kendras (GSK), just like the
Passport Seva Kendras or the Aadhaar Seva Kendras. The GSKs can work on the pattern of the
Passport Seva Kendras to provide new registration facilities with required checks on fake
registration.
According to sources, the Law Committee has suggested that a fresh registrant must go for
compulsory physical verification and personal identification in case he or she opts for non-
Aadhaar authentication-based registration process and does not have income tax
returnsupported adequate financial capability In such a case, he or she may have to submit a
recommendation letter by two taxpayers of adequate reliability.
Further, also, if on the basis of document-supported credentials, a registrant or dealer falls in
“trustworthy” category, then he or she can be given registration within seven working days.
If he or she is not in the “trustworthy” category, then conditional registration shall be given
within 60 working days only after physical verification of the place of business wherein in such
cases input tax credit to their buyers shall be allowed only after filing of their return and the
dealers would be required to pay certain portion of their liability in cash instead of paying 100
per cent tax through ITC.
According to sources in the Department of Revenue, to weed out existing fake dealers from the
GST system, the panel proposed full application of the Business Intelligence and Fraud Analytics
(BIFA) tool for precise identification riskier dealers based on the riskier input supply chain and
outward supply chain, abnormal taxpayer behaviour in terms of ITC availment, tax payment for
catching fake dealer and taking appropriate action, including enforcement.
It has suggested suspension of first lot of riskier traders and identification of such taxpayers on
the basis of significant criterion including non-filing of return for six months, said sources,
adding that the committee underlined the fact that there are about 6 lakh dormant registrants
in GST.
It further proposed that no income tax credential be given if 99 per cent tax is paid through ITC.
There were about 35,000 such dealers who were given registration in 2018-19 and 2019-20,
having GST liability of more than Rs 50 lakh (yearly), and more than 99 per cent tax paid
through ITC and have no credential in income tax (did not pay income tax even of Rs 1 lakh in
last three years).
Sources said that in the Law Committee’s opinion, once a dealer is suspended, he has to explain
the discrepancy within the prescribed time limit for revocation of suspension.
5. Automation of cargo clearance processes to improve trade facilitation: ADB
Expeditious cargo clearance with minimal physical interface for an efficient supply chain and quick
adoption to digitisation would help countries within South Asia to improve trade amidst the
pandemic even as the national lockdowns have begun to ease, according to an Asian Development
Bank (ADB) blog post.
The pandemic has underscored the importance of trade facilitation within South Asia and with the
region’s neighbours, said the blog written by Aileen Pangilinan and SatishReddy.
“As national lockdowns begin to ease and supply chains resume operation, difficulties in cargo
movement and clearance processes are expected to linger. “A look at the South Asia Subregional
Economic Cooperation (SASEC) countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal,
and Sri Lanka – shows the importance to recovery of effective and modern trade facilitation
measures,” they said in the blog.
Trade facilitation – the measures to promote and ease trade – was already under way in SASEC
countries when the pandemic started.
However, the customs agencies during the height of COVID-19 found it difficult to position staff at
clearance locations, said the blog writers.
Thus border crossings couldn’t function efficiently while the private sector, including importers,
exporters, customs brokers and freight forwarders, struggled to mobilise staff, as per the blog. They
also experienced difficulties meeting clearance requirements like providing original documents and
paying duties at the bank. These bottlenecks affected the movement of goods and services,
including time-sensitive products like medicine and relief goods, it added.
“Automation of clearance processes, which should have played a greater role in helping cargo
move seamlessly across borders, with limited need for human contact, affords an example of the
gaps in trade facilitation progress. The writers said there is inadequate digitisation in many of the
cross-border regulatory agencies as well as lack of digital connectivity among these agencies, ports
and terminal operators and shipping lines that has further hindered flow of cargo.
The pandemic has underscored the importance of trade facilitation, particularly for responding to
crisis. “The need to clear cargo expeditiously, with minimum physical interface and to maintain
efficient supply chains, has highlighted the need for an enhanced trade facilitation environment,”
they said.
Besides, the pandemic has highlighted the need to institutionalise business continuity protocols,
crossborder pandemic management protocols, and workplace and staff safety procedures.
Following advisory by SASEC Secretariat outlining measures to cope with the pandemic and
facilitate trade, countries in the region simplified customs and regulatory procedures, waived the
need for paper documents and reduced the scale of customs involvement. Some also waived tariffs
and fees on essential goods, deferring the payments and waiving terminal charges.
GENERAL STUDIES 5: ASSAM POLITY
6. RBI record
No decision yet on making Foreigners’ Tribunals operational. Though Assam Government has
renewed the term of the services of the members appointed for the proposed Foreigners’ Tribunals
by one more year, no decision has been taken on making the tribunals operational. Assam
Government had decided to set up 200 new Foreigners’ Tribunals and members for the same were
selected by the Gauhati High Court.
The members were appointed on contract basis for a period of one year and their services have
been extended for another year recently. But it is still not decided when the new tribunals would
be made operational. Official sources told The Assam Tribune that no decision has yet been taken
as to when the other staff selected for appointment in the new tribunals would be appointed.
Sources said that the decision to set up new tribunals was taken in view of the fact that the
persons, whose names were left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), would file appeals
before the Foreigners Tribunals. But such people can file appeals only after they receive the
rejection slips from the office of the State NRC Coordinator with details of the causes of rejection.
But as the rejection slips have not yet been issued, the Government has postponed the process of
making the tribunals operational. “The Government is ready to make the new tribunals operational
as soon as the NRC Coordinator’s Office starts issuing rejection slips to those whose names were
not included in the NRC. But there is no point in incurring extra expenditure till the rejection slips
are issued,” sources added.
The final NRC was published more than a year back and names of more than 19 lakh applicants
were not included in it. But the process of issuing rejection slips was delayed because of the COVID-
19 pandemic and the date for issuing the same has not yet been announced.
Sources said that the decision to extend the services of the members appointed for the new
tribunals for another year was taken because it would be difficult to go through the selection
process afresh once the NRC Coordinator’s Office starts issuing the rejection slips. The members
appointed for the new tribunals are now attached with the existing tribunals so that they can
gather adequate experience.
It may be mentioned here that the State Government is not satisfied with the final NRC and
approached the Supreme Court with the appeal that there should be 20 per cent reverification in
the districts bordering Bangladesh and 10 per cent in other districts.
The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) has also called for reverification of the NRC, but the decision
of the Court is awaited.
EDITORIAL DISCUSSION
GENERAL STUDIES 2: GOVERANCE
1. Covid-19 and our immediate future
Covid-19 has run roughshod over every facet of our existence and it will take some considerable
amount of time before we get to experience any semblance of normalcy. Fortunately, there has
been a steady decline in the rate of infection and the number of cases recorded each day has
witnessed a significant slump in many States as compared to the initial few months of the ravaging
menace. However, it must be borne in mind that the catastrophe is far from over and there is
absolutely no room for complacency as far as regulating the disease is concerned.
Scientists have warned that India might experience a second wave of Covid-19 this fall as the
mercury begins to dip creating conditions for further spread of the disease, with Delhi perhaps
currently witnessing the same. In the United Kingdom, there has been a 40% hike in cases since the
start of winter and the government there has resorted to further lockdown in view of the
deteriorating situation and mammoth rise in Covid cases.
Here in India, even though many of the States are leaning towards a stable curve, it would be
foolhardy to turn a blind eye to the massive spurt in Covid cases in the States of Haryana, Rajasthan
and Delhi, mostly owing to significant dip in mercury levels. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had
been prescient in genuflecting a potential worsening of air quality post-Diwali celebration across
the country.
The constant exhortations and warnings about the dangers of bursting crackers being bull horned
into public consciousness have had a positive impact with people disavowing grandiose celebration
this time around. And yet an overzealous group, albeit small, was seen flouting government
directives with impunity and revelling in the festive fervour with reckless abandon.
Post Diwali, the air quality index (AQI) is hovering around 440 in Delhi compounded by other
factors such as stubble burning, dipping mercury and vehicular pollution.
Fairly recently, the Central Government introduced a new law through an ordinance to curb air
pollution in Delhi giving the newlyformed committee stronger teeth to reprimand and penalize
those in contravention of the laid out recommendations. However, stubble burning in parts of
Punjab and Haryana is an annual phenomenon and how far such laws would be effective are yet to
be seen. Infuriated by the controversial farm laws that are being perceived as ‘anti-farmer’, farmers
of Haryana and Punjab have only intensified stubble burning which can further deteriorate air
quality.
The air quality in Guwahati is now marked as moderate but is likely to slip further as the winter
season intensifies. The Covid-19 positivity rate in Assam has dropped significantly to 1% alleviating
the caseload across various hospitals and steadying the disease curve to a manageable level. This,
however, should not be seen as a free pass to throw caution to the wind and disregard Covid
protocols.
With winter approaching, there is every possibility of a second wave which has the potential to
throw life out of kilter, snuffing off livelihoods and wreaking havoc to the already tattered
economy. There has been a wave of political rallies organized by various political parties in view of
the upcoming Assembly election in Assam and the election in the Bodo Territorial Region
facilitating large congregations, a perfect springboard to be super spreaders of Covid-19. The
Assembly elections are still a few months away and it will be sagacious to slack up on the
campaigning momentum at least for another one month or so.
The likelihood of a vaccine hitting the scene, a panacea for this dreaded ill, has rekindled hopes of a
better future in India as well as around the world. The vaccines being readied by Pfizer and
BioNTech have demonstrated 92% efficacy in Phase III clinical study and may be rolled out very
soon.
However, in India, the unavailability of cold chains that can maintain temperatures as low as -70oC
and other logistical issues are being viewed as major challenges posing the healthcare system.
Allaying such fears, AIIMS director Randeep Guleria has said that Indian vaccines have a lot of hope
given their good safety signal and immunogenicity and also dovetails with the current storage
infrastructure.
The director of ICMR, Dr Rajni Kant, has warned that the idea of herd immunity in India is a pipe
dream given India’s population and any complacency in adhering to Covid norms could have
disastrous consequences.
The Government should be vigilant and see to it that people are following basic safety norms such
as wearing masks, using sanitizers and maintaining physical distance. The exhaustion that has
washed over the general public due to prolonged lockdown is yet to wane and there is very little
appetite among the masses to withstand another setback in the form of a lockdown, an inevitable
consequence of a Covid peak.
It is prudent to exercise maximum restraint and also create awareness about the severe
repercussions of a laidback attitude. A little restraint and caution can save us a great deal of pain
and misery and help us carry on with our lives without further upheavals.
GENERAL STUDIES 3: ENVIRONMENT
1. Miles to go
While addressing students at the convocation ceremony of the Pandit Deendayal Petroleum
University in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that India has set a
target of cutting down its carbon footprint by 30% to 35%. In 2015, at the Paris Agreement, the
world decided to limit global warming to two degree Celsius below pre-industrial levels and to try
and limit the increase to 1.5 degree Celsius.
India’s endeavour to reduce its carbon footprints, which refers to the total greenhouse gas
emissions released by individuals, activities or organizations in a country, accords with its pledge
made in the Paris summit and is designed as our nation’s contribution towards reducing emission
of greenhouse gases and global warming.
To put it rudimentarily, reduction of carbon footprints can be achieved only through decrease in
the use of fossil fuels and more reliance on green, non-polluting energy. One notes that, in the
same address, Modi also said that India was working to double its oil refining capacity over the next
five years, thereby revealing that fossil fuels would continue to be the key driving force in the
nation’s energy production. Moreover, Modi did not mention any timeline to achieve the
mentioned goal and, judging by India’s performance since the Paris Agreement, we have yet miles
to go before being able to attain a sought for level of green energy production.
For instance, in India the energy sector continues to be predominantly coal powered. One notes
this to be a determining factor in the atmospheric pollution which grips cities like Delhi every
winter, but hardly any steps have yet been taken to rectify the shortcomings. In the developed
nations, there has been a game changing thrust at generating renewable energy after harnessing
power of the wind, sun, water, nuclear plants, etc.
This is why coalfired plants are shutting down there and experts predict that by 2040 almost every
developed country in the G20 would be primarily green power-driven. Reportedly, even China is
working frantically to reduce its dependence on coal by experimenting with and introducing
alternative sources of renewable energy.
In his address, the Prime Minister also spoke about how India was making progress in the field of
solar power, but ground realities reveal a somewhat bleaker scenario, with ambitious schemes
languishing and production being confined only to a handful of States.
As for wind power, India has accorded a somewhat modest target of 60 GW by 2022, but research
by environmental organizations assert that wind installations may reach only 45 GW by March
2022, which is merely a drop in the ocean for a vast nation like India with its enormous energy
requirements. Clearly, India has a long way to go in achieving the target of 175 GW of renewable
energy by 2022 as mentioned by Modi.
GENERAL STUDIES 5: ASSAM ECONOMY
1. Decongesting Guwahati city
Guwahati city has become overcrowded. Those days when you could see greenery and water-
bodies all around Guwahati had long passed. Now it has become a concrete jungle with unplanned
construction everywhere. There is enough demand for accommodation, on rent or self-owned, and
there is enough money available to build housing space as it provides a safe rate of return.
So, if there is demand for accommodation in this city, then that demand shall be met by new
construction, ecological degradation and spoiling of the age-old natural beauty of this city
notwithstanding. The fast-growing population of the city causes traffic snarls in every main road,
and so in the bylanes, particularly at the office and school starting and closing timings.
The streets are chock-ablock with vehicles, mini-trucks, auto-rickshaws and motorcycles, and the
traffic moves at snail’s pace to test your patience. Contrast this to the weekend holidays when the
roads are relatively empty and one can drive easily without being hassled by the honking of the
impatient vehicles from behind.
One gets this relative peace on roads because besides the floating population who commute to and
from the city only on weekdays, the semi-residents (those people belonging to nearby towns who
take residence here on rent for working in the government and other offices) go back to their
respective places for the week end holidays only to come back on Monday to resume their office
life.
This segment comprises a sizeable population of Guwahati as could be deduced indirectly from the
reduction of traffic in the city roads on holidays. The population in this segment is growing with
time as all the new jobs seem to have been created in and around Guwahati only; take for example,
the blue-collared jobs created in new shopping malls or new highrise complexes or new hotels,
motels, resorts, restaurants, etc., besides the new white-collared openings in government/ other
offices.
The government and the authorities concerned are doing their best to tackle the situation. One can
evidence this from the number of new bridges, road widening projects, new flyovers that are
implemented in the last few years and also from the new initiatives announced including planning
of faster and bulk transport systems. But these provide only temporary reliefs as by the time a new
project for streamlining traffic gets completed, the traffic catches up to the older level or even
more due to the new additions of vehicles or from new population entering the city. One gathers,
everyday around 200 new vehicles are added into the already overcrowded vehicle population of
the city.
Also, the population in Guwahati is growing. It was 9,62,300 in 2011 and it was estimated to rise to
11,12,896 in 2020, even at a conservative yearly growth rate of 1.63%. So incremental
improvement in infrastructure wouldn’t suffice. So, we need to look at alternative long-term
solutions. It is, in this context, we should think about redefining the concept of satellite towns.
In common parlance, when we talk about satellite towns, we possibly think of Sonapur/ Khetri or
even Jagiroad, Mirza or thereabouts, North Guwahati or any area which falls within this limited
radius. The problem with this understanding is that when these satellite towns are developed to
meet their growth expectations, the load in Guwahati city will correspondingly rise straining its
infrastructural facilities even further. The new prosperity in these satellite towns would unload its
consequences on the infrastructure of Guwahati city only as more people from the developed
satellite towns are expected to descend here. So, it’s time that we redefine the concept of satellite
town itself.
The satellite towns that we presently refer to should for all practical purposes be considered as
part of extended Guwahati city as the infrastructural load gets reflected in Guwahati only. We need
to include places like Nalbari up to Barpeta, Mangaldoi even up to Tezpur, Nagaon even up to
Jakhalabandha, etc., under Guwahati’s satellite towns’ category.
The criterion for such inclusion should be that one should be able to reach Guwahati from these
towns in a matter of 45 minutes to an hour. If that is the case, then people from these places can
come in the morning to Guwahati, either for medical attention or for official work at Dispur or even
to see a movie or visit shopping malls, and return comfortably home after finishing their work. To
make it happen, what do we need?
We need a ‘Fast Mass Transport System’ (FMTS) to provide connectivity to these towns so that the
‘45 minutes to an hour’ criterion is fulfilled. In these days of bullet trains, this should not be difficult
to achieve in future. But the system should be efficient operationally, the tickets cheap enough and
the availability frequent and timely. There can be a separate hub created for this, located outside
city limits from where small metro trains can operate to places of interest (say medical college
hospital, Dispur capital complex, ropeway point, central market/shopping area, etc.). We can take
the example of the Paris underground railway network where there is a station for tourists to
disembark/embark near every tourist site. In such a scenario, floating population and even semi-
residents (weekdays’ residents only) would conveniently use this FMTS facility to commute without
taking residence in Guwahati and to that extent the clogging of the city’s infrastructure facilities
would ease.
Obviously, this is not going to happen tomorrow. But can we at least think about the concept
directionally to incorporate it in the State’s LRP (Long Range Plan) or in the longer PP (Perspective
Plan)?
One can then even think about the stretch of land from Khetri/Jagiroad to Nagaon by the sides of
National Highway 37 to locate universities, educational institutes, reputed residential schools, even
big reputed shopping malls so that these are within driving distance for the surrounding towns’
residents paving the way to all-round development of middle Assam while unclogging Guwahati
city. The NHAI could then be persuaded to upgrade NH-37 into an eight-lane highway. Any takers?