Shillong: The last mile to an urban nightmare

Crowded roads, car noises, angry people, annoyed pedestrians and annoyed faces – these are the characteristics of Shillong today. And since COVID’s restrictions were eased – after all offices and schools reopened – the city now stops moving at a icy speed every day.

My office is about three kilometers from home. I walk one kilometer on the way to drop my children off at school. To cover a distance of about five kilometers, I drive for about an hour and a half every morning, ”said Denang Momin, a resident of Forest Colony, to East Mojo.

“I think I spend three hours or more each day on the road in my daily commute. Sometimes even more if there was an alternative I would take it because of the frustration as well as my fuel costs.

In an effort to rebuild why the city’s roads remain congested, development patterns need to be considered. The distribution of development in Shillong has long been dramatically different, rapid and unplanned. In fact, it is the only city in the whole of Meghalaya and is carrying the burden of development alone. There is no other center of development that receives as much attention and attention as Shillong.

According to a land use study by local researchers PK Ryngnga and Bring Ryntathiang, the city expanded rapidly and uncontrollably between 1991 and 2010. While the idea was to extend urban expansion to New Shillong, there were no policies in place.

The researchers added that most of the city’s suburbs, which were considered rural before 1971, saw changes in land use, which eventually became part of the city.