Something that keeps coming back every single year in Guwahati has now caught attention of local MLA Diganta Kalita,who is saying loud and clear that this flooding problem cannot be solved by government alone . And honestly,after nearly 20 years of same waterlogging crisis repeating itself,that statement deserves some serious thought .
On July 14,Kamalpur MLA and BJP leader Diganta Kalita shared post on X where he said directly,"Both the government and the public share the responsibility for making the city flood-free." Simple words,but weight behind them is not small.
According to Kalita,Guwahati has been struggling with urban flooding for somewhere between 15 to 20 years now . That is not short time by any measure . And his argument is that drainage systems are failing not just because of old infrastructure,but because plastic and solid waste keeps blocking them during monsoon season . Rainwater simply has nowhere to go.
And this is where his point gets uncomfortable for many people to hear.
He is essentially saying citizens are part of the problem . Improper waste disposal,garbage dumped near drains,plastic clogging waterways… all of this is contributing to situation that floods entire neighbourhoods every single year . Government intervention is necessary,yes,but he is arguing public behaviour needs to change alongside it.
Three things Kalita is highlighting in this whole conversation:
- Shared responsibility model where both state government and local residents must work together for flood-free urban environment
- Waste disposal awareness and preventing garbage from being dumped into drains to protect city's drainage capacity
- Immediate relief measures where administration needs to prioritize rapid response strategies during peak monsoon periods
Current administration,according to Kalita,is committed to implementing relief measures . But he made it clear that engineering solutions alone cannot fix what public habits keep undoing . That is honestly a fair point even if it is not easy to accept.
Local authorities in Guwahati have been under pressure for long time to upgrade aging sewage network which regularly overflows during heavy downpours . And separately,Assam Government is also evaluating new engineering approaches to handle rising levels of Brahmaputra river affecting city's low-lying areas . So problem operates at multiple levels simultaneously.
What makes this situation complicated is that both things can be true at same time . Government may be slow or underfunded in fixing drainage infrastructure,AND citizens may be carelessly dumping waste that makes existing systems worse . Pointing finger only in one direction probably misses half the picture.
Guwahati has lived with this crisis for nearly two decades now and every monsoon season brings same images,same complaints,same emergency responses . Whether this call for shared responsibility actually translates into changed behaviour on ground,or whether it just becomes another social media post that people agree with and forget by next week…that part is still very much unclear.
