Mission Potholes
- A slap on the face of authority -
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: August 07, 2012 -
We are all familiar with the adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words".
It refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed meaningfully with just a single picture or image.
The photograph we carried on the front page of this paper on its August 6 edition was nothing short of this truism.
It is interesting to know that with the authority concerned looking the other way, members of an Auto Rickshaw Association in Tamenglong have taken up the onus of filling up numerous potholes that have becoming a characteristic feature of the roads criss-crossing the entire length and breadth of Tamenglong district headquarters.
It is said that each of the member have been saving/contributing Rs 10 from their daily meager earning for the purpose of purchasing the required materials for filling up the potholes.
With just 26 members in the Association, and the total amount of daily contribution coming to just Rs 260, we can easily understand how long the members must have planned their mission.
But they must have surely felt a strange sort of satisfaction when they finally managed to collect enough money to carry out their mission of filling up the potholes, much to the embarrassment and discomfiture of the district administration which has remained close its eyes and ears to the cry of the people for repairing the deplorable condition of the roads in Tamenglong district headquarters.
Talking of filling up potholes, members of The Naga Blog (TNB), a group on social networking site, Facebook, have launched 'Mission Potholes' to draw the attention of the authorities to the deplorable condition of the roads in Nagaland.
Since the launch of the mission in Dimapur on July 28 last with a group of young bloggers going around to plant rice saplings and fishing at every pothole they came across, the movement has gained momentum across Nagaland.
After Dimapur, the mission soon spread to Zunheboto, Kohima, Mokokchung and Wokha, where large number of people from all walks of life came out to participate in the campaign.
Although we still have to wait and see whether or not the 'Mission Potholes' of TNB members in Nagaland or the similar drive undertaken by the Auto-Rickshaw drivers in Tamenglong district headquarters is able to draw the attention of the authorities concerned to the deteriorating condition of roads, we need to analyse and understand why such missions are becoming necessary not just in Nagaland or Tamenglong alone, but also in other parts of Manipur including the capital city, Imphal.
Today, it is becoming almost a 'mission impossible' to find even a stretch of road without potholes in any part of Imphal.
This is really shameful.
It is high time for the state government and its department concerned to find out why road repairing works in Manipur never last one calendar year before waiting for the public to come up with similar mission potholes, which could be rather handful.
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