SIVASAGAR, July 25 - Moran or Moranhat happens to be the most neglected township in Assam, feel its residents. The haphazard growth of the town is often attributed to the fact that it is sandwiched between Dibrugarh district in the north and Charaideo district in the south. The left side of the AT Road while going towards Dibrugarh is with Dibrugarh district and on the right is Charaideo district. The NH-37 that bifurcates the two halves, happens to be the cause of the unending misery of the town dwellers as it is perennially overcrowded, full of all kinds of vehicles, garbage, mud and slush as there is lack of proper drainage system on either side. The ongoing Rs 13.5-crore modern drainage construction on the Dibrugarh side, however, brings a ray of hope as it is the first major initiative in infrastructure building in the town since decades.
Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who was once the MLA from the constituency, last year laid the foundation of a 3.5-km-long concrete drainage construction along the NH-37 from Lachit Nagar to Naharkatia Tiniali on the Dibrugarh side and from the Tiniali to Natun Nagar on both sides of the road. The Chief Minister directed the National Highway Authority to construct the drainage as per specifications and designs so that it serves the people for a long time. The contract was assigned to one BB Constructions, which according to a number of organisations in Moran did a substandard work, despite repeated objections from many quarters.
One of the slabs laid over the drain in front of the Pannalal & Co petrol pump in the middle of the town gave-in, barely two months after its construction, when a truck tried to enter the pump�s premises. Local units of the AASU, AJYCP, ATASU, ATTSA and the Ahom Jaitya Gana Mancha have demanded a thorough investigation into the works of the ongoing project. Construction of the drainage system was also hampered by the CAA movement for a few months and now the vagaries of weather (like incessant rains) has brought in further hurdles.
The Rs 10-crore project under the Moran Revenue circle (Dibrugarh) which is upgrading the link roads and lanes of the town in Peoli Nagar, Joya Nagar, Kushal Nagar, Lachit Nagar and Mirihola area will relieve the residents of waterlogging to a great extent as the excess rain water will be carried over to the main tunnels along the sides of the AT Road. Sovit Chetri, a prominent resident of the town said that only scientific planning executed in a coordinated way by both the district administrations can solve the waterlogging problem.
Lack of proper drainage on the Sivasagar side of the town will render the good work on one side ineffective and the AT Road will continue to be filled with squalid mud and flushed-out floodwaters. The residents of the town hope that the Minister for Disaster Management Jogen Mohan, also a resident of the town, will soon do something in this regard. The waterlogging problem of Moran town, especially between the Tiniali and the ASTC Point, will finally be over only when the master drains from the town will be linked to the Betiajan and the Tiloijan, at quite some distance from the town as the nearby low-lying areas are fast being converted to developed residential areas.
