Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan : On the CM's commitment
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 05, 2012 -

Power supply, drinking water and road connectivity may not exactly catch the people's imagination like Roti, Kapda aur Makaan (Food, cloth and shelter) but it nevertheless means something much more than the mundane to the average Manipuri and why not ?

For a people surviving on a daily dose of 7 to 8 hours of power supply, a few hours of water supply twice a week and roads that turn from slushy to dusty as and when the sky opens up, the real essence of these three points will not be lost.

This is where Chief Minister O Ibobi seems to have got his fingers right, but it remains to be seen how these points move from the status of a slogan to a policy that is translated at the ground level.

Money is no doubt central to any project or any plan, but when this takes on the form of an obsession or hovers close to a compulsive disorder, then all plans or projects can go haywire.

The Chief Minister must keep this in mind, if his stated objective of keeping aside the lion's share of the State Plan of Rs 3500 crore for the fiscal for all ongoing projects is to have any substantive meaning.

Imphal is today a silent spectator to numerous incomplete projects, which were taken up amid much hype and publicity in the last ten years, with the Chief Minister himself lording over them.

And lack of funds or money have had nothing to do with the numerous incomplete projects which have already taken a heavy toll on the people, overshooting their deadline numerous times.

The tragedy is no one seems ready to learn a lesson or two from the continuous process of digging, filling and digging the roads in the heart of Imphal for the sewerage project.

The number of years it took for RIMS road to open to the public still continues to be a benchmark of Government lethargy and ineptness. The bottomline should be clear. It is not money or lack of it which has been hindering the numerous projects taken up in the State, but something else.

Inefficiency, lethargy, corruption and plain indifference are writ large over many of the projects which have done everything except bring conveniences to the public. The Chief Minister should be ready to acknowledge this.

The swank new ISBT was inaugurated on December 3 last year by none less than the Prime Minister himself, but today its status is nowhere near completion.

Surely Mr Ibobi knows something about this and the natural question that follows is what has been done to rectify the wrongs ? Or is it a question of more time, more money and more leeway to keep the wheel of the Minister-official-contractor nexus churning ?

No amount of money is going to ensure that these projects will finish on time until and unless the man at the top gets down to the business of cleaning up the mess which has become institutionalised.

When meeting deadlines does not exist in the popular understanding of the Government, this does not inspire much confidence.

And when projects which have been inaugurated but are not anywhere near the completion stage continue to adorn the capital city, then the assurance of concentrating on power supply, drinking water and road connectivity and thereby bring a qualitative change in the near future may just appear to be a little too far fetched.