Assam Tourism Minister Jayanta Malla Baruah on Monday informed that the Assam Government is adopting a scientific approach to address the persistent water logging issues in Guwahati. In an interview with Meghalaya News 24, Baruah emphasized the necessity of a comprehensive drainage system to manage the city’s flash flood and water logging problems, while acknowledging that a complete solution may be challenging.
“We are now planning to redirect our water drainage to other water bodies, and we are developing new water bodies as part of a total scientific solution that we will approach in the next few days. I think some water logging problems can be managed, if not totally solved,” Baruah explained.
He further pointed out that some cities in Assam were not developed scientifically, leading to issues like artificial floods and water logging that need to be addressed. “Water logging is a general problem of urbanisation. Our city didn’t develop in a proper scientific way, but we are evolving day by day. In every urbanisation, there are artificial flood and water logging problems, but nowadays, there are many solutions to this problem, and we are working on those solutions,” he added.
At the Tourism Ministers’ Conference for North Eastern and Eastern States/Union Territories held in Shillong, Baruah highlighted the impressive growth of Assam’s tourism industry, citing an increase in foreign tourist arrivals from 6,000 to 42,000, and domestic tourists nearing one crore.
The conference, chaired by Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, focused on enhancing tourism in the region. Baruah discussed Assam’s efforts to develop luxury tourism infrastructure and promote homestays in lesser-known areas through the ‘Amar Alohi’ scheme. He also urged the Ministry of Tourism to create a search engine dedicated to helping tourists find local homestays, thereby reducing reliance on multinational companies and benefiting small businesses.