A CORRESPONDENT
TEZPUR: The historic Tezpur town has been plagued with various civic problems like deplorable condition of connecting roads within the greater town, garbage dumping, water logging, haphazard construction of buildings for both residential and business purposes and traffic congestion.
The condition of the roads in Tezpur town has worsened over the years, posing serious threat to vehicles and pedestrians. Big knee-deep potholes are there in most of the roads because of which frequent accidents and traffic jams take place. The road running from Lachit Chowk to Police Reserve and Bhairabi Mandir via Kalaguru Bishnu Prashad Rabha's residence is in a bad shape with many big potholes. Moreover, Lachit Chowk ex-police line road connecting NH 37 (A) via LGBRIMH, Tezpur Radio centre, NERIWALM, Marabharali and Dolabari is also in a bad condition but it is yet to attract the attention of the local authorities and local MLA.
For Tezpur LAC, though crores of rupees have been allotted for road and other development works, many roads are lying in a dilapidated condition. The roads from Chanmari Railway crossing to Fire Service base, Lalmati Police out post, TB Hospital, Kanaklata Park, Tiger hill via Chanmari daily market and Chanmari Sarbojanin Dharmamandali and from the same point to Chanmari area via Kalaguru Sangit Mahabidalya to Tezpur ITI point, which are the major routes of the town, are in a dilapidated condtion. With increasing number of vehicles, coupled with poor and dusty narrow roads and lack of proper footpaths, road accidents and traffic congestion have increased.
The cries of the people of Tezpur town have fallen on deaf ears. Though the Tezpur Municipality Board often asserts achievement in the field of developmental works of the town, the common citizens are witness to dusty broken roads, unhygienic liquids leaking out along with contaminated rainwater from the blocked drainage system and rotten garbage strewn on the roadside at various places, which together pose serious health hazards. Because of these civic problems, Tezpur is fast losing its past glory and more importantly, due to the utter negligence of the common citizens the developmental works of the naturally-planned township have been hampered.
Ramani Mohan Talukdar and Kamada Prashad Choudhury, social workers of the Chanmari area, alleged that though repair work of some of these roads had started, the contractors had done sub-standard work in order to siphon off the allotted funds in connivance with the civic body. They urged the authority concerned to look into these problems and to ensure proper repair and renovation of the roads of the town.