City doc mobilises community to breathe new life into Guwahati's dying river channels

Guwahati: Alarmed by the rapid degradation of the city’s once-vital river channels, city-based doctor Rabindra Nath Mazumdar has taken up the cause of restoring these neglected waterways and transforming them into living public assets.

Concerned over rampant encroachment and indiscriminate garbage dumping, he has been working at the grassroots level to document the decline of the channels and mobilise local communities for their revival.


“From 1961 to 1977, I was in the city studying at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH). At that time, the water flowing through the Bharalu channel was clean. When the river channel was not blocked, people used to bathe in it and even fish there. The stretch between Rajgarh and Zoo Road, along which the water flows, was a vast, sprawling paddy field, and people often took walks there.” Mazumdar said.

Mazumdar left Guwahati for his further studies after 1977 and returned in 2008 to work at a private hospital. However, the picture was very different. Upon returning, he found that the river channel had become narrow, and its water was stagnant and black. Disturbed by this, he planned on doing something to restore the river channels. While his solo efforts were ongoing, in 2021, he, along with a few like-minded individuals, formed a group called ‘Save Bharalu’. However, due to COVID protocols being in place, their efforts slowed down.

“During the lockdown, I wrote a poem on the Bharalu River and uploaded it on social media. After reading it, many people messaged me to compliment my work. Encouraged by this response, Robin Kalita and I started a WhatsApp group to bring people together. As we could not meet in person due to restrictions, members shared their ideas and inputs through the group,” Mazumdar added.

Mazumdar began by personally surveying and documenting the condition of several channels. He has written about the deteriorating state of the city’s river channels in newspapers, aiming to influence public thinking and urge citizens to see these waterways not as dumping grounds but as shared natural assets. Through awareness meetings, clean-up drives, and community interactions, he encourages people, especially young minds, to take ownership of the channels running through their neighbourhoods.

The Bharalu is a non-perennial river that originally received a steady flow from the Bahini river, which originates in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya.

Beyond immediate clean-up efforts, he frequently approaches the govt officials concerned, pushing for a long-term revival. “We were concerned and did not know about the blockage in Basistha Chariali. A sluice gate was installed there in 2004 under the assumption that the Bahini river channel was the main cause of flooding in the city. However, flooding still happened despite that. The officials can still remove that and resume the channel’s natural flowing state,” he said.

Despite the poor condition of the river channels, Mazumdar remains optimistic and believes that if citizens begin to care for these channels, the administration will eventually follow.