Repeated water leaks, broken roads and shifting blame expose deep failures in Guwahati’s urban infrastructure planning
On May 19, a news report published in GPlus stated that a water pipe at Ganeshguri had been leaking every day between around 10 am and 4 pm, with locals watching thousands of litres of water draining into the road. When residents asked why the issue had not been fixed, the response was not what they expected. A Jal Board official told GPlus that repair work had been delayed because the department was still waiting for PWD permission to excavate the road. At Rajgarh Road, a busy commercial and residential stretch, repeated surface damage over the past year has been linked to pipeline work below, with residents questioning whether each new repair would last. These are not isolated cases. They are being reported across several localities, with the question of responsibility shifting between government offices.
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Pointing fingers at the Guwahati Metropolitan Drinking Water and Sewerage Board, commonly known as Jal Board, is often the simplest response. But, a closer examination shows a more complex situation, described as “a city growing faster than the systems meant to manage it”, where multiple government bodies are working on the same ground and roads with limited coordination.
Guwahati’s population has more than doubled since 1991, rising from around 5.84 lakh to over 12.26 lakh today, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in Northeast India. Despite its location beside the Brahmaputra, more than 70 percent of the population is still not connected to a reliable piped water supply. Only around 40 percent of households have access to the central piped system, most of which has developed in the last decade, and even those connections often receive water for barely an hour a day. Jal Board is not failing a finished system. It is trying to build one while the city grows around it.
Four major water supply projects have been underway for over a decade, funded through JNNURM, JICA, and the Asian Development Bank, covering the South West, North, South Central, and South East zones. The South West project, budgeted at Rs 398 crore when it launched in 2007, has become a cautionary tale. Gammon India Limited was removed for poor performance, Larsen and Toubro took over in 2023, and the completion date, first set for 2024, has been pushed to late 2025, making it an 18-year-long project. The damage is visible on the ground. Rajgarh Road has faced repeated surface breakdowns linked to JICA pipeline work, and residents promised relief by 2024 are still waiting.
Guwahati’s geography adds another layer of difficulty. The city has expanded from 6.4 square kilometres in 1874 to a metropolitan area of 328 square kilometres today, much of it built on hilly and uneven terrain. Water pressure changes sharply over short distances due to elevation differences. Soil composition varies from compressible alluvial ground near the river to rocky hillside elsewhere. Pipeline joints in these transitional zones face far more mechanical stress than those in flat cities. Leaks in these conditions are structurally more likely, a factor that shapes what residents see on the ground.
The impact of these challenges is being felt across the city. In areas such as Manik Nagar, Sundarpur Path, Chachal, Hengrabari, Japorigog, and Downtown, water supply disruptions have been reported repeatedly. In Ambari, a pipeline leakage in October 2024 led to severe waterlogging that paralysed traffic movement.
On Bhuban Road near the Guwahati Planetarium and on Lamb Road near Jurpukhuri, damaged and poorly patched road stretches are visible. A local shopkeeper near the Planetarium said, “The potholes had been filled with sand, but the water washes it away every time it rains.”
Another resident said, “The pipeline seepage below was responsible for repeatedly breaking up the road surface.” He added that neither GMC nor PWD had taken effective action.
When contacted, a senior PWD official responded directly, stating that these issues are caused by Jal Board pipeline work.
However, the relationship between the two departments cuts both ways. The Ganeshguri leak went unrepaired for nearly two weeks because the Jal Board was waiting for PWD clearance to open the road. The same department blaming Jal Board was also responsible for withholding the permission required to carry out repairs at the time the report was filed.
Responding to the criticism, a senior Jal Board official outlined the nature of the work involved. On the issue of road damage, the Secretary stated that Jal Board work does not create potholes in the conventional sense. Instead, they often leave square depressions at the exact site of excavation, which are structurally different from irregular potholes caused by surface water and traffic load. On restoration delays, the official said that roads cannot be permanently sealed immediately after pipeline installation.
According to the account, joint integrity and pressure stability must be confirmed before permanent sealing is carried out. Premature sealing and subsequent reopening of a section within a short period, he noted, can lead to further damage.
He further stated that pipelines consist of multiple joints, each of which is susceptible to soil movement, pressure fluctuations, and external stress. In Guwahati’s terrain and during monsoon conditions, such issues are described as a predictable aspect of ageing infrastructure rather than direct negligence. The official also acknowledged general mechanical failure as a contributing factor.
One incident highlights the complexity of such cases. After the Ambari waterlogging incident, Jal Board clarified publicly that the pipeline had not failed on its own. According to the clarification, another agency had installed a temporary pole directly over a commissioned pipeline, and the resulting load caused the leak. The responsibility for repair remained with the Jal Board, and the incident was reported under its name, even though the cause originated elsewhere.
This points to a wider gap in the ongoing debate. The dispute between Jal Board and PWD does not fully account for the number of agencies involved in underground work across Guwahati. The GMC carries out drainage and sewerage work along the same corridors. BSNL and private telecom providers lay cables beneath the same roads. Electricity utilities and other scheme contractors also undertake excavation work. Each agency digs, but there is no uniformly enforceable system requiring coordination between them.
An RTI query by Advocate Nayan Moni Hazarika showed how deep this failure runs. When Gammon India was removed from the JICA project, it left without submitting as-built drawings of the work completed. As a result, the exact location of manhole pockets in the main pipeline was not known to the Jal Board that inherited the project. A critical section of infrastructure was left without a reliable map, making it difficult for any agency to know what lay beneath the surface before excavation.
What Guwahati needs is a formal coordination framework for all underground work. Several Indian cities have moved towards a dig-once policy, where a single excavation is planned to accommodate multiple utilities, reducing repeated digging on the same roads. A shared underground utility map, accessible to every agency before any digging begins, would eliminate a significant share of the third-party damage Jal Board currently absorbs and repairs.
The Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority, the GMC, and the state government together have the authority to build this. Without it, the pattern is likely to continue, with repeated road digging, incomplete restoration, and recurring disputes over responsibility. Guwahati is a city of over 12 lakh people that still cannot guarantee piped water to more than half its residents. This does not account for every operational challenge faced by the Jal Board. But it does explain why treating the issue as a single-department failure does not reflect the full reality, and why without structural coordination, little is likely to change.