Intl airport, sans pass port office : Bucket of cold water after a hot shower
- Sangai Express Editorial :: May 03, 2013 -

Comes close to a case of putting the cart before the horse. Signature style of the Congress Government, which is now into its third consecutive term.

Sweet and sour ? It is this and more.

The sweet or good part was the announcement by the Chief Minister that Tulihal airport will start handling international flights from July 2013.

Air connectivity with the outside world and certainly the feel good factor in hearing that Manipur will be on the map of international airports is unmistakable.

A far cry from the days when Tulihal airport looked like a decrepit, unkempt Government structure of the 80s and 90s. No doubt a movement in the right direction.

However as is the wont with the present dispensation, which has been lording over the affairs of the State for over ten years and is now into its fifteenth year, in glossing over the international status on Tulihal airport, the Government has once again overlooked one crucial aspect. Manipur today has a number of international travellers.

Businessmen moving outside the country, on their own initiative to set up trading partnerships, professionals going abroad to attend international conferences, students going abroad for higher studies.

The number of people from Manipur venturing beyond the country is increasing every year.

This was more or less stressed in the announcement by the Chief Minister when he inspected the ongoing work at the airport in the presence of officials from the Airports Authority of India.

However travelling abroad entails two very important aspects. One is passport and the other obviously is visa.

Despite the growing number of international travellers in Manipur, people still have to go to Gauhati to obtain passports. This means extra expenditure, loss of working hours and many other inconveniences. An international airport in a place where there is no provision to issue passports and everything looks like a hotch-potch arrangement.

Certainly not the way of running the affairs of the State.

Sometime back, there was talk, huge talk, of Manipur soon having a passport office. Fast forward by a couple of years and no one seems to know what has happened to this. Big talk, full of gas, with little substance.

Take another farcical practise that is in vogue here. Application for passports can be submitted at the Imphal General Post Office. And after official process, which may take months, one may receive one’s passport. In the absence of a passport office, this is acceptable, though not desirable.

But how does one explain the fact that renewal for passports cannot be submitted at the Imphal General Post Office. If this is not a farce, then no other situation would qualify as farcical.

Why has no thought been given along this line ? Construction works inevitably involve the process of awarding contract and supply works. It entails floating of tenders.

This may sound attractive in the circle of people who run the affairs of the State. However such procedures may not be involved in opening a passport office here.

And most certainly extending the provision to apply for the renewal of passports at the Imphal General Post Office would not entail contract works.

Seen against this reality, international flight operating in Tulihal airport would amount to something like a bucket of cold water after a hot shower, during the bone chilling winter months.

Think over it.