The freshwater wetlands of Assam are located in two river plains - the Brahmaputra plains (56,480sq. kms) drained by the river Brahmaputra and its tributaries and the Barak plains (6962sqkms) drained by the river Barak and its tributaries. In the floodplains of these rivers, there are a large number beels, swamps and marshes known as jalah, doloni, hola, pitoni, etc. Interestingly, all these water bodies comprise a vast sheet of water with varying shapes, sizes, and depths with abundant flora and fauna. There are 1907 registered beels covering an area of 63019.8 hectares of land. Though the wetlands provide some important services to human beings, nevertheless, these are now very much threatened due to various anthropogenic activities and consequently degrading over the years. The growing trend of degradation of wetland perturbs its ecological role and reduces its competence to provide various services, otherwise, it would provide. This paper is a humble effort to assess the plight of such wetlands and to identify their drivers. Two major beels or wetlands, i.e., Morikolong beel, an urban wetland of Nagaon district and Solmari beel, a lesser-known rural wetland of Marigaon district of Assam have been taken for detailed investigation. Policy failure and massive anthropogenic pressure are found to have been the major causes of degradation of the wetlands. It is also realized that designing proper policy at the local and regional level along with its strict implementation is the need of the hour.