Making a farce of 'inaugurated' : Of CCC and others
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 05, 2012 -

Prime Minister inaugurating the City Convention Centre on Dec 3 2011 :: Pix - David M Mayum

Inaugurated but not yet complete and the farce continues.

A multi-purpose project inaugurated without the power component, that is the Khuga Multi-purpose Project at Churachandpur district.

A City Convention Centre inaugurated but with nothing substantial to show that the 700 seat capacity auditorium is anywhere near completion.

It is the same story with the Inter-State Bus Terminus along Dingko Road. Surely the Government of Manipur has succeeded in giving a new definition to the term inaugurated.

The icing on the cake is obviously the report that the fund for the City Convention Centre has been exhausted.

This is in sharp contrast to the razzmatazz which characterised the inaugural functions of the said projects, involving two of the most important personalities of the country-Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson and the boss of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi.

People living in the vicinity of Khuga project must have remembered the day the State Government rolled out the red carpet for Madam Gandhi to inaugurate the multi-purpose project, though the fact that the project had come up sans the power component may not have registered in their minds.

It was the same case with the other two projects, the Inter-State Bus Terminus as well as the City Convention Centre.

On December 3, 2011, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi inaugurated these two projects, which had anyway crossed the deadlines many times earlier.

The ugly underbelly of Imphal city was cleverly camouflaged, what with all the window dressing exercises taken up to welcome to two leaders of the country.

Fast forward by another year and the status has not changed at all. At the risk of exaggerating things, we may say that the two projects have not moved an inch since the day they were inaugurated amid much fanfare.

Taking the two leaders for a ride or taking the people for granted ? Either way, this sucks.

To be sure the inauguration of the said projects may have reaped electoral dividends, as the Congress swept the polls held shortly after the inauguration spree.

Standing testimony that the Congress Government has miserably failed to translate the massive mandate it received at the hustings to governance.

Or is it a case of governance being equated with election and election alone ? If at all there is a category for capital cities with incomplete projects, Imphal would rank right up there at the top, with no challengers.

Sure the electoral exigency may have goaded the then Congress led SPF Government to inaugurate the said projects, but what has been done in the days since then ?

Funds blocked by the Union Finance Ministry cannot be the alibi anymore. This is no way to run a Government and this is not governance.

There is also still no sign of the Imphal Sewerage Project nearing the completion stage. Far from it, its inconvenience factor continues to dog the daily movements of the people.

Chief Minister Okram Ibobi and his men seriously need to get down to the basics. The shadow cast by the incomplete projects is unmistakable.

A nexus of the politician-contractor-babudom coming to the fore. Nothing less.

When the process of awarding contract and supply works gains primacy over the actual implementation of the work at the ground reality, then the farce of inaugurating long pending projects, only to keep them incomplete for more than a year will continue to dot the landscape of Imphal and this is what has been happening for ages.