DIBRUGARH, June 5 � Recently, a Bengaluru based travel and tourism website Thrillophilia.com has listed Dibrugarh as one of the ten top Offbeat Indian cities to settle in, if one prefers a life away from the hustle-bustle of a big metropolis. The other such cities in the list include Bhopal, Ranchi, Chandigarh, Surat, Jaipur, Nagpur, Kochi, Kozhikode and Bhubaneswar.
Dibrugarh, developed in the British-ruled Assam and considered a premier township in North-East India since the late nineteenth century due to its commercial importance centering around tea, coal, oil, cane and timber based industries, railway and riverine communication connecting it to the erstwhile Calcutta port and also as the first medical township of North-East India, suffered nature�s fury in the form of severe flood and erosion from the mighty Brahmaputra. However, since the last six decades, the river-bank at Dibrugarh remains the unchanged, owing mainly to the effective anti-erosion measures taken by the respective governments.
Modern Dibrugarh today is a much sought-after destination for the foreign and also domestic tourists, who wish to rejuvenate themselves amidst the serenity and tranquility of the lush green tea gardens with the irresistible aroma of the Assam tea and also amidst the wild flora and fauna in the close vicinity. Moreover, corporate giants ONGC, OIL, upcoming BCPL, IOC etc., with their offices and installations around, better rail, road and air connectivity and also medical facilities available in the city act as major contributing factors for the growth of the city into a major urban centre of eastern India today.
However, Dipankar Sharma, general secretary of the Assam Rail Passengers� Association has said that only half the potential for development of railway services in and around Dibrugarh seems to have been utilised so far. �Local DMU services in Guwahati and Dibrugarh has been in our list of demands since long and super-fast trains connecting Dibrugarh with Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Katra in J&K and Puri is the need of the hour,� he said. Besides tourist information�s centers and tourist friendly amenities need to be geared up, Sharma said.
