DIBRUGARH, Oct 3 - The 46th founding day of the Dibrugarh district was celebrated with due fervour on Monday. It was this day � which is also the birthday of Bapu Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri � in 1971 that the Dibrugarh district was notified as a separate district, after the Lakhimpur district was bifurcated. The function to mark the occasion was held under the auspices of the Dibrugarh Zila Pratistha Udjapan Samiti and held at the Sishu Bharati campus at Graham Bazar here.
The Samiti�s president, Dr Shantanu Lahkar explained the significance of the day, and assured the packed auditorium that better and more elaborate programmes would be planned from next year onwards. On the occasion, retired headmaster Bhadra Gogoi of Tengakhat was specially felicitated. He is also noted for his literary pursuits.
The key attraction of the function was retired vice principal of the DHS Kanoi College, Bhim Kanta Konwar, who was invited as the appointed speaker. In his hour-long speech, he almost gave the audience a lesson in the region�s history, while linking it to Dibrugarh, which is Assam�s oldest town. Guwahati was declared a town six years after Dibrugarh. While Konwar took the audience on a historical path, the listeners lapped it all up, as the nuggets of information flowed in. He made special mention of the name of Joy Narayan Dhelia, whose Dibrugarh Electric Supply Company was the third in eastern India, after Kolkata and Shillong, to light up the homes and streets of this town.
Konwar also mentioned the pre-eminence of the Dibrugarh district in several spheres, ranging from education to healthcare, newspaper publication to legal and financial services and overall industrial and business and commerce activities which put Dibrugarh in an enviable position in undivided India, till the pre-independence days.