The Department of Housing and Urban Affairs Assam proposed for setting up Assam Urban Knowledge Hub (AUKH) with a team of urban planners with varied experience to guide and implement the urban innovations and reforms envisaged by DoHUA. The Knowledge Hub was envisaged as the ‘Think tank and Centre of Excellence’ for urban reforms in Assam. In February 2024, the AUKH was started its operations with the appointment of 18 urban planners as the implementation team along with a fixed-period Core Team of five Experts from CRDF-CEPT University.
The team and their activities in the AUKH are monitored by the Director of Town and Country Planning, with daily operations being coordinated by Assistant Directors of T&CP. The AUKH team of 18 planners have diverse specializations and experience levels, which includes five specialized experts, three mid-level planners, and ten junior-level planners. They are divided into three sub-teams focusing on urban planning, urban mobility, and artificial flooding & drainage.
Tactical urbanism offers low-cost, temporary changes to the built environment, aiming to improve urban areas, neighborhoods, and public spaces through community-driven efforts. This approach employs a "trial and error" method, and helps taking city-level urban planning decisions through on-site prototyping. Such projects are typically low-cost, temporary, and community-driven. Tactical urbanism encourages active citizen participation, fosters urban innovation, and promotes flexibility through efforts like pop-up parks, street art, pedestrian plazas, pedestrian spaces, signal re-design, etc.
Successful examples of tactical urbanism in Indian cities like Pune, Kohima, Mumbai, and Chennai have addressed urban challenges effectively and are also highly appreciated. Inspired by these success stories, the Department of Housing and Urban Affair (DoHUA), Government of Assam, along with the Assam Urban Knowledge Hub (AUKH), under the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (T&CP) has carried out a tactical urbanism project at Ganeshguri, Guwahati in February 2024. The Ganeshguri Junction, one of the city's busiest, was chosen due to ongoing urban issues like traffic congestion, poor road geometry, and compromised pedestrian safety.
To understand the ground challenges and the need of the project, a joint site-visit by several government officials from various departments was conducted. Notable attendees included Smt. Ms. Kavita Padmanabhan, Commissioner and Secretary of DoHUA, Mr. Prateek Thube, Joint Commissioner of Police, Guwahati, Mr. Megha Nidhi Dahal Municipal Commissioner, Guwahati Municipal Corporation, Mr. Rahul Chanda Das, Managing Director, Assam State Transport Corporation, and Mr. Deepak Bezbaruah, Director, Town & Country Planning, among others. The site visit was led by Shreya Gadepalli, urban transport specialist and founder of Urban Works, Mumbai along with AUKH coordinators and team members.
The AUKH team have observed and analysed the ground data like traffic flow and count, pedestrian movement, parking, and signal timing. Based on the analysis possible solutions were provided and tested on site. The final interventions included:
After the implementation, the project was monitored for about a month, and observations were reported to officials from different departments. These officials were satisfied with the success of the tactical urbanism project and were eager to initiate similar projects in other parts of the city. As a result, a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for Guwahati street improvement and Junction plan (Amar Sohar, Amar Rasta) was signed among Guwahati Traffic Police (GTP), Public Works Department Roads (PWD Roads), Guwahati Smart City Limited (GSCL), Guwahati Utility Company Limited (GUCL), Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), and AUKH under the Town and Country Planning, Assam.