Refusing to look beyond Imphal Road sides : Not parking lots
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 21, 2015 -

The commercial areas in Imphal are over crowded.

Everyone, including the Government, agrees on this point. Rise in population with no corresponding increase in space is a reason.

Couple this fact with the rapid increase in the number of vehicles on the road and one will get a fair idea of what over crowding means.

There are reasons for the rise in population and increase in the number of motor vehicles on the road, but the Government seems oblivious of the plain fact that much of the over crowding has to do with its poor response to the reality.

In fact one may even go further and say that there has been no worthwhile response from the side of the Government.

The sense of lethargy is absurd.

Maybe this has got more to do with the fact that the VVIPs or political leadership do not have to move around like ordinary folks and when they do move, the roads are always cleared by shooing away the lesser mortals, that is people like us.

The refusal to acknowledge the fact and then act accordingly is what is perplexing.

Maybe it serves their narrow political considerations but it makes absolutely no sense to keep on concentrating more and more on the little spot of space that is available as the market area in Imphal.

Why can’t the Government acknowledge the fact that they need to look beyond and see how the commercial activities can be stretched to other parts ?

As noted earlier, such things will not be a priority for they can always move at ease but it is the common folks who have to suffer.

Couple this with the refusal of the people to develop an ounce of civic sense and the nightmare of moving around Imphal is something which everyone must have experienced at some point of time.

So while Khwairamband bazar, Thangal Keithel, Paona Keithel, BT Road and the adjacent areas are flooding over with people the Government has not given a single thought on ways to develop market places in other areas.

To compound the matter, the Government has not given a thought on the annual fish mela held every year on the eve of Ningol Chakkouba at Polo Ground.

A point which has been commented upon numerous times, but the Government or the babudom obviously think it better not to give a thought to the trouble that the common citizens have to face annually.

Multiplying the inconvenience of the public is the grand plan of the Government to construct yet another market place at the campus of the erstwhile Tombisana High School, just plum opposite to the former Assembly complex.

Who has come up with such an idiotic plan in the first place ?

Maybe Imphal is one of the few State capitals, where no thought is given at all to parking lots.

The road sides will do is a mindset that is no longer in vogue at any other place.

Unacceptable it is, especially in this age when the political leaders are talking about Smart Cities.

No magic formula in place, but time for the Government to wake up and look beyond Imphal and study what city planning is all about.

Magic not needed but application of mind in spirit.