Wooden houses sum up Chingai woes
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, February 02 2013 : As an apparent indicator that the Government has a long way to go in achieving its mission of developing the States by 2020, wooden houses still galore within Chingai Assembly Constituency of Ukhrul district.

Into the interior areas of Chingai AC in Ukhrul district, wooden houses, including roofs made of wood planks, are a common sight.

Huge amount of fund sanctioned for development and upliftment of interior areas of the State do not seem to reach its targeted public as is evident in Chingai AC.

Coming across some such all-wooden houses at Kachai village, the attention of the concerned authority had been drawn through a report, accompanied with relevant photographs, in this paper few years back.

However, the conditions of those houses remain the same till today but only with a slight increase in the number of such houses.

The presence of over ten wooden houses were noticed alone at Poi Village, located near Border Pillar No 126, 127 and 128 range.

Ashang, an owner of one such wooden house, while talking with this reporter said that he constructed the house as he could not afford a better one.

Coupled with the financial constraint, bad road condition in transporting building materials such as GI sheets deterred Ashang from opting for a better structure.

As such, they depend on big trees in the nearby jungles for use as construction materials.

In an attempt to get GI sheets, Ashang had submitted many applications to the concerned department.

He lamented that the pleas remained unheard for this long.

Visibly, this poor villager's face glowed with a significant smile when he heard that the local representative had delivered GI sheets for him at his own village.

Interacting with this reporter, villagers of Poi said their village has been neglected for long by the concerned authority while implementing development programme/schemes.

Hence they were left in a disadvantageous position in many fields.

In fact, the link road to the village, inhabited by a little over 2000 villagers, has been in shambles.

Travelling the 12 kilometre road stretch from Kharasom by a vehicle took around 2 hours.

Apart prolonged travel negotiating the inhospitable road during rainy season is unimaginable, the villagers said adding it is one of their worst nightmares.

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