Guwahati Is Sinking: 70 Years of Floods, No Lessons Learned!

Guwahati Is Sinking: 70 Years of Floods, No Lessons Learned!

ANJAN SARMA

Guwahati, May 30, 2025 – As torrential rains return to Assam’s capital, submerging streets, homes, schools, and hospitals, citizens are left to wade through not just rising waters, but decades of broken promises, failed policies, and mounting despair.

Guwahati, once heralded as the gateway to the Northeast and a cultural capital nestled on the banks of the mighty Brahmaputra, now lies crippled by a crisis that has lasted for over seventy years.

Since 1954, when Assam first officially recorded the devastating impact of the Brahmaputra’s flooding, Guwahati has become a symbol of the state’s chronic inability to balance urban growth with ecological wisdom. Each year, the story repeats: monsoon rains arrive, drains overflow, and the city drowns—yet nothing changes.

A Historical Crisis: 1954–2025

The year 1954 marked a turning point. That year, a catastrophic flood permanently altered the discourse around the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. It wasn’t just a natural event—it was a clarion call to act. Yet, despite being declared a “national calamity” by the then Government of India, subsequent decades witnessed not policy reform, but deepening neglect.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the picture remains grim. Every year, from May to September, Guwahati transforms from a functioning urban center into a city under siege. From Anil Nagar to Chandmari, from Nabin Nagar to Hatigaon, familiar neighborhoods become floating islands—stranded from essential services, cut off by water and political indifference.

In 2024, the Guwahati Railway Station and Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport were both under water. Passengers were seen walking through knee-deep floodwaters. Trains were delayed, flights were cancelled. And yet, no permanent improvements were made.

Urbanization Without Planning

Guwahati’s population has exploded from under 200,000 in the 1960s to nearly 1.2 million today. But this rapid urbanization was neither planned nor sustainable. Hills were razed, wetlands drained, and natural stormwater channels—once the veins of the city’s ecological system—were encroached upon or concretized.

Once, the Bharalu, Bahini, and Mora Bharalu rivers acted as natural drainage for monsoon runoffs, connected to the Brahmaputra. But today, they are little more than narrow, encroached sewage channels, often choked with plastic, construction debris, and untreated waste. In a cruel irony, a city flanked by one of the world’s largest rivers now lacks safe drinking water and a basic flood management plan.

Instead of improving drainage and water management, the city has focused on building flyovers—many of them without proper planning or vision. Roads have become narrower, especially in core city areas like Zoo Road, Ganeshguri, and Chandmari, due to unscientific flyover pillars and overhead footbridges. These constructions, often praised as “development,” have worsened traffic, reduced pedestrian space, and funneled rainwater into already weakened drainage systems.

Climate Change and the Unpredictable Monsoon

While Guwahati’s vulnerability stems from poor planning, the intensifying global climate crisis has added a new, unpredictable layer. Assam now witnesses heavier and more erratic rainfall than ever before. A recent IMD (Indian Meteorological Department) report noted that the number of extremely heavy rainfall days in Assam has doubled since the early 2000s.

As climate change increases glacial melt in the Himalayas and monsoons become more extreme, the Brahmaputra’s water levels have become volatile. Its tributaries, which course through the hills and forests surrounding Guwahati, now overflow frequently, inundating both the plains and the rising concrete jungles in the hills.

Yet, climate adaptation is absent from local policy. There are no climate-resilient infrastructure plans, no eco-sensitive zoning regulations, and no early warning systems that reach the vulnerable. What we see instead is reactive politics—a few sandbags, a visit by officials in boats, and hollow declarations.

Drainage: The Rotten Core

Guwahati’s drainage system, most of which was designed during the British colonial period, is now obsolete. The total stormwater drainage capacity can handle only 30 mm of rainfall per hour, whereas the city often receives over 100 mm in the same timeframe during peak monsoons.

The Deepor Beel, a Ramsar wetland and vital natural sponge, has been slowly reduced by illegal encroachments and garbage dumping. Guwahati once had over 450 ponds and small lakes. Today, most of them have vanished. In 2021, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority warned that unless drainage was revamped and wetlands restored, Guwahati would face “permanent urban flood vulnerability.”

Meanwhile, open drains across the city are clogged with plastic waste. Despite a plastic ban, enforcement remains poor. Plastics and polythene bags block already narrowed drains, causing reverse water flow during rains. Civic awareness campaigns are sporadic at best, and penalties are rarely enforced.

That warning, like many others before it, was ignored.

Political Complacency and Corruption

Urban flooding in Guwahati is not just an environmental issue—it is a deeply political one. From local municipal boards to state administrations, successive governments have failed to prioritize long-term planning over short-term electoral gains.

Master Plans for Guwahati were drafted in 1971, 1992, and again in 2009. All promised decongestion, scientific drainage, sustainable urban development. None were fully implemented. Millions allocated for desilting drains and clearing clogged rivers mysteriously vanish each year, with little accountability or transparency.

The Assam Urban Infrastructure Investment Program (AUIIP), supported by the Asian Development Bank, was supposed to revolutionize water supply, sewerage, and drainage. Yet, progress has been patchy. Pipes were laid without completing water treatment plants; drains were built with faulty gradients that caused reverse flow during rains.

The Brahmaputra: A Blessing Ignored

It is a paradox that a city on the banks of the Brahmaputra—a river that sustains over 30 million people in the region—suffers both water scarcity and flooding. Instead of treating the river as a partner in sustainability, planners have treated it as a threat.

Nowhere is this negligence more evident than in the city’s drinking water crisis. Despite having access to an abundant and perennial river, over 40% of Guwahati’s population still relies on groundwater, which is depleting rapidly. Ironically, during floods, the very homes that drown often have no water to drink.

Voices from the Ground

“I have lived in Nabin Nagar for 25 years. Every year, the water comes in June. Every year, we raise our beds on bricks and pray the water stops at the doorstep,” says Purnima Deka, a retired schoolteacher. Her home, like hundreds of others, lies in one of the city’s low-lying flood zones—zones that continue to be allotted for residential use despite repeated disasters.

Rikhi Das, an auto-driver, shows his flooded garage. “The water comes fast now. There’s no warning. One night of rain, and we lose everything.”

Their voices are not exceptions—they are the majority. The flood does not discriminate by class or caste. From street vendors to IT workers, everyone in Guwahati has a flood story. But the ones with power have air-conditioned offices on higher ground.

Lessons from the World

Cities like Rotterdam, Copenhagen, and Singapore have embraced “living with water” as an urban strategy. Through permeable pavements, green roofs, rainwater harvesting, and riverbank restoration, these cities have transformed their flood threats into resilience models.

Why can’t Guwahati learn?

Experts say it’s not about money, but political will. “Until we treat floods as a policy failure rather than a natural disaster, we will keep repeating this cycle,” says Dr. Abinash Saikia, an environmental scientist at Tezpur University.

The Way Forward

Guwahati cannot afford to wait another decade. Immediate actions are needed:

• Restoration of wetlands and natural channels, especially Deepor Beel.
• Desilting and reconstruction of major drainage systems with climate-resilient engineering.
• Scientific zoning and ban on further hill cutting and encroachment.
• Creation of a real-time flood early warning system.
• Inclusion of community participation in urban planning and emergency response.
• Transparency and accountability in infrastructure projects, including citizen audits.

Most importantly, Guwahati must re-establish its lost harmony with the Brahmaputra—not as an enemy to be controlled, but as an ecosystem to be nurtured.

The Waters Will Rise Again

As dusk falls over a flooded Guwahati once again in 2025, the questions remain unanswered. How many more years will it take? How many more drowned homes, lost schooldays, and displaced lives? How much longer will the city suffer in silence?

Seventy years have already passed. Guwahati’s flood crisis is no longer a seasonal event—it is a humanitarian, environmental, and political emergency. If the next decade does not bring transformation, the city may not have another seventy years to wait.

30-05-2025

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