By Ibochouba Maibam
IMPHAL Nov 25: A team of media persons from the state while traveling to Mizoram under the sponsorship of the state government discovered the pathetic condition of the Guite road, which covers around 222 Kms of road inside the state and is altogether 437 kms at the culmination point at Aizawl, capital of Mizoram.
Even though the team took one and half days to cover the 222 kms of road in the state, it took only about nine hours to cover the 230 kms from Tuivai (Manipur-Mizoram border) to Aizawl.
Interestingly the team met a group of cadres of the Zomi Revolutionary Army (an underground group currently under the SoO) who extended help to the team showing gratitude and support for the team when informed that the team was on an inspection tour of the condition of the roads, bridges of the state along with development of Mizoram.
It may be mentioned that concern authorities including K Ranjit, PWD minister and other concerned officials had given assurance to the people of the state to developed the said NH 150 via Guite road after various inspection of the road during the prolonged economic blockade call of various Naga organizations which had totally defunct the NH 39 and NH 53 the two main lifeline of the state.
However even after more than three months since the assurance was given, the state government has failed to consider their own assurance of developing the road till now.
Along the total 222 kms inside the state it may be said that the 127 kms stretch from Singhat to Tuivai was the worst with the maximum time being spent to cross the stretch.
The media team was flagged off from the AMWJU office by TN Haokip, IPR minister on the morning of November 10 and reached Khuanggin village which is 198 kms away from Imphal along the Guite road at around 9:30 pm of the same day. After spending the night at Khuanggin village, the team resumed on its journey early morning of the next day and reached Tuivai village, the Manipur Mizoram border at around 11 am of November 11.
Even though the road stretch of Guite road was not that long the condition of the road was such that the team had to travel at a snail’s pace and on numerous occasions the team had to manually move their vehicle from the numerous ditches on the road.
A locality of Sinzwal namely Kaikhomang Paite told visiting mediaperson that authorities of Manipur government had surveyed the road for bringing development. Land survery for starting development works had also been performed sometimes back. However, there has been no time frame for starting road development work. As the road connecting Mizoram continue to remain in awfully bad condition, people are suffering immense hardship.
He also told the media team that due to bad road condition, government officials posted in interior area of Churachandpur district failed to visit the area.
The stretch of only 15 kms of NH 150 from Sinzawl to Tuivai was also in a bad condition, however after crossing over the Mizoram border the condition of the highway had considerably improved as compared to the stretch in the state.
The team while on their return journey took NH 54 in Mizoram and entered Manipur through NH 53 with the hope that the condition of NH 53 will be better than their onward journey; however the stretch from Tousem Lamkhai to Khongsang is at its worst condition.
The return journey was somewhat interesting as their were instances when the driver could not drive any further due to exhaustion on the way because of the road condition and the members of the journalist team had to replace him and drive their vehicle.