Upgrading NH-37 : A pipedream ? Palpable casual approach
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 23, 2012 -

Deplorable condition of NH-37 in July 2012 :: Pix - Mongjam Abhiram

There is a certain sense of the unfortunate in the timing.

Just one day after Outer Manipur Parliamentary Constituency MP Dr T Meinya drew the attention of Parliament to the deplorable condition of the Imphal-Jiribam line or NH-37, came the news of numerous Manipur bound fuel tankers stranded at Numaligarh due to the blockade imposed in Golaghat over the boundary dispute with Nagaland along NH-2.

This time it is due to a blockade in Assam and earlier this was due to blockades on NH-2 within Manipur or Nagaland. Next time the blockade could be anywhere on the major lifeline of the State.

There appears to be a pattern in which NH-37 comes to the consciousness of Delhi and Imphal only when there is a blockade or a bandh along NH-2 or the Imphal-Dimapur stretch of this highway.

And there is nothing beautiful about this pattern. There must be something definitely more than the oft cited technical difficulties and the terrain over which NH-37 passes for the absurdly long time it has taken the Border Roads Organisation to upgrade this stretch to the standard of a National Highway.

With the Lim concept and with the demand to upgrade Sadar Hills to the status of a full fledged district providing cannon fodder to the politics of blockade, it extends beyond the mere understanding of keeping a people and a place hostage to only one lifeline.

It could be about real politiks of keeping a people divided not only over an issue or two but also on the question of cutting off the flow of essential commodities to a place or a people.

The need to understand the urgency of the matter cannot be overemphasised. The BRO, by all account, seems to have adopted a “too casual” approach to the work entrusted to them.

A case of the stubborn refusal to learn a lesson or two from the experiences of the past. Manipur encountered her first marathon blockade in the form of the ANSAM sponsored 52 days economic blockade in 2005.

In 2010 there was the more than 60 days of blockade, called by the UNC and supported by ANSAM and in 2011 there was the record breaking more than 100 days of economic blockade, which were concurrently imposed by the Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee and the UNC.

Overnight queues at the petrol pumps, petrol being sold in the black market at Rs 200 per litre, filled LPG cylinder being sold anywhere between Rs 1500 and 2000 in the black, medicines and oxygen running out of stock, escalating prices of all essential commodities etc obviously have failed to act as the motivation to the BRO to apply themselves to the task at hand.

This is where the pattern that we talked about emerges. Or is improving NH-37 a job that strictly requires engineering genius, which obviously the BRO does not have ?

More likely it is a case of sheer negligence, compounded by indifference. With Delhi satisfied with merely sending a representative now and then to review the work progress, Manipur may as well gear herself up for longer queues at the petrol pumps.