The Government should take note of the missive from the Deputy Commissioner of Kangpokpi. Or else Manipur will see yet another spell of her lifeline being cut off, this time not by any CSO but from the failure to heed the warning alert sounded by its man from Kangpokpi. It has always been like this, but take some of the recent developments at Kangpokpi into consideration and it has all the makings of the situation getting out of hand. The heavy rain in the last couple of days coupled with the earth crack at Kangpokpi and the script seems to have been written to make the highway extremely unpredictable. As the DC pointed out in his SOS to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, Works Commissioner and the PWD Chief Engineer, the movement of heavy, loaded trucks along the Gamgiphai-Hengbung stretch of the National Highway has already made the condition of the highway all that more worrying and if corrective measures are not taken up soon, there is every possibility of the highway being rendered unmotorable.
Call it the topography of the land, but yet indifference of the Government should not make the situation worse. As things stand today and with reports coming in, the highway is dotted with potholes and the heavy rain in the last couple of days has only aggravated the situation. How dicey the highway is can be known only by taking the land route and this would not be pleasant but will be an educative experience !
The problem of relying on only one highway to connect with the outside world. As reported widely in all the local newspapers sometime back, Works Minister Th Biswajit was seen taking a first hand account of the condition of the Imphal-Jiribam highway but now no one seems to know what has happened or what is the status of the repairing work at the moment. The point is, there does not seem to be any tangible progress in the repairing work and this is a cause of concern. The moot question is, how serious is the Government about making the Imphal-Jiribam line a road fit to be called a National Highway ?
It is worth noting that the Imphal-Jiribam highway comes to the consciousness of the Government only when there is a blockade on the Imphal-Dimapur highway. This mentality sucks. Now with the Imphal-Dimapur line on the verge of breaking down any moment, if early corrective steps are not taken, will the attention of the Government turn to the Imphal-Jiribam line ?
Develop both National Highways as they should be done. Land routes connecting Manipur to the outside world are the routes which feed the people and this is a point that should not be lost on the Government. Likewise all should also come to the point that the highways cannot be held to ransom on any count for it is about the people of the whole State.
Source: The Sangai Express
