CCPUR The Second Hand Town

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CCpur: The Second Hand Town

By: Abel Hmar *

A top journalist friend of mine, who is a Correspondent and also a Guest Editor for the number one Newspaper in the country called me up the other day and requested me to mail him urgently some of the materials that I had written earlier. When I expressed to him over the line my inability to do so as there is no power (electric); dejected he said over the phone " Churachandpur and its famous intermittent power-cuts, 'Power-Less Ccpur' guess we have to wait until the Tipaimukh Dam is built.

I could understand my journo friend great sense of disappointment for he was badly in need of the materials which he had requested to mail him via e-mail, as he was about to go for the print there was nothing we could do about it.

With such a reliable unreliable power-supply there was nothing that we could do about it; Churachandpur is said to be the second town and the largest district in Manipur, but the second hand treatment of it by the Government at Imphal have made it the least of all town and the most ignored district in the State. Nothing, practically nothing is what it should be in Churachandpur/ Lamka.

In this age of administrative state, the basic amenities that the concept of Welfare State entails are/ is a luxury enjoyed only by the powerful and the affluent section of the society, the basic amenities, facilities and service that the Government is supposed to provide to the people here is a 'privilege' far beyond the reach of the common people.

A Chronology of a few of the ills affecting the Churachandpur District:

THE ELECTRIC/ POWER SUPPLY:

The Electric and Power Supply in the Churachandpur district Pathetic is the word for it, Unreliability its hall-mark, & Intermittent power cuts its watchword. The Amount of power supply that the district receives is far below the required amount (watt), the power supply in the district is almost nil, equivalent to zero. To put in a jest-full manner 'the Electric loves to play hide and seek with its customers/consumers/ the people.

The Electric department knows how to issue regular Electricity bills; but it is yet to learn how to feed constant and regular power supply for the people. Due to the inconsistent and irregular power-supply, the general public is badly affected, and the small scale electric based industry badly hit, the Students are the worst sufferers – most of the time they have to put in long hours of study under kerosene lit lamps (kerosene –another scare commodity) or a flickering candle light.

For due to economic disparity not everyone has the luxury of switching on an Inverter or a generator once the power supply is off. Churachandpur is far from being electrified, due to the pathetic power supply Lanterns are back… Ccpur have gone back to the pre- First World War times in terms of electricity.

The top-daily 'The Sangai Express' a few weeks back carried a captioned photograph of the SP of Churachandpur, L.D. Lhatoo, IPS, having to work under the flickering light of candles. Imagine the plight of the common man, when top official and functionary have to stretch their retinas under the flame of candles.

This perfect use of photo-journalism says so much about the deplorable, appalling and un-acceptable, irregular power supply to the district of Ccpur – which is the said largest town, and the largest district in Manipur.

The SPF Government has signed MoU – with the Joint Student Bodies of the District who has taken up the case, and who had earlier launched an agitation on the issue of irregular power supply. Deadlines after deadlines have been extended by the Government, but till date not a single point or single demands of the Student Bodies have been met.

The Student Bodies went on hoping against hope that the SPF Government would be responsible enough to honor the MOU signed. But this was not to be the case, our dear Oja Ibobi Singh has given a new meaning to the term MOU, for our CM MOU are just nothing but just a means to defuse a high voltage situation, a lightning conductor which he proficiently uses/ signed sans sincerity only as a means to an end, with no intention of honoring it in letter or spirit.

For Ibobi Singh MOU is not Memorandum of Understanding but rather MEMORANDUM OF UNDERMINING. Our Thoubal MLA have indeed, needless to say mastered the art of deception. Raise any issues, form any number of JACs, the CM will be more than happy to put his signature on another MOU.

Like I have mentioned earlier for the CM, MOU is a means of deterrent, which he used when he feels he is pushed to the brink, when negotiations cannot make a breakthrough, when he feels that he is utterly helpless and there seems to be no solution in sight. No wonder he is known as the MOU Chief Minister alias MOU SINGH.

THE 'PAUSE' OFFICE:

If I am not mistaken India is among the first, if not the first to have a uniform postal system thanks to our Colonial Master – The Angrezis. The India Post boast of more than a hundred years of loyal and dutiful service; but unfortunately in Churachandpur there is no semblance of such –of a more than a century old field of expertise.

The Post-Office at Tuibong is operationally 'Non-Functional', the 'excellent service' rendered by the staff can be felt as one walks into the post office. Avail of a subscription to any of the nationally renowned magazines; in the CCPUR Post-office standard you should consider yourself really lucky if your friendly neighborhood Post-man actually delivers a copy or two. No use scratching your head wondering or trying to figure out where the rest of the copies go.

Lady luck sometimes smiles upon you when one of the post-man who knows you personally would make an 'out of the way' delivery to your door-step on his own initiative. He would come perspiring, with his worn out khaki bag flung above his shoulder. In between breaths, he would say as you offer him a glass of water "I found this letter of yours lying in the Post-Office (Pause-office) for weeks now, since the concern post-man seems least bothered about it, I thought I would deliver it to you'.

The post-box located in various parts of the town are now colored by nature with a rusted red and not the color of 'the post-office red'. The state of service offered by the Ccpur-Post office can be known from the fact that people who are expecting an important letter, parcels or documents, make a regular trip to the post-office, not leaving to anything to chance especially - the undependable service of the post in Ccpur. Students who are applying for the various examinations conducted by the UPSC and the SSC and other central agencies have to make frequent jaunts to the 'Pause- Office' where the letters are stored and stalled.

For the people of Ccpur – Our Post-Office is a 'Pause-Office' instead, where letters and documents, magazines, parcels are put on a permanent hold – "paused' by the employees for reasons whatsoever. Here 'Pause-Men' ply their pausing trade at the "pause office'.

DEGRADING ENVIRONMENT & ECOLOGICAL IMBALANCE

Of late the forest area/cover in and around Churachandpur has been depleting at an alarming rate due to the rampant feeling of trees, clearing of forests for jhumming cultivation. The over-all temperature is rising by a few degrees ever year; Churachandpur is getting hotter every year, part of the global warming phenomenon. But what is more appalling is that the Forest Dept is not really doing a thing about the degrading environment in the district.

Felling of trees is the lifeline for the rural folks, this is undeniable, and for them rural people felling of trees serves two purposes, the land is cleared for cultivation (the shifting type) and the trees are dried and used as firewood.

If the felling of tree cannot be stopped, the people should at least be educated about the damage done to the environment when trees are fell at indiscriminately, and an awareness should be created in the minds of the rural folks that though land and trees may be a source of their livelihood, rampant feeling of trees and burning of forests (also done by poachers to scare away their game) will affect them (the people) adversely, and would also greatly deteriorate the environment and upsetting the ecological cycle thus resulting in an imbalance.

The District Forest Dept. should create an awareness, and educate the locals about the need to preserve the environment, the difference between bio-degradable and the non degradable, and how the use of plastic bags is choking the environment, on the need to plant more trees and the ill-effects of the jhumming type of cultivation.

We need something like the CHIPKO movement here, to prevent the further decline of the forest area, if proper steps are not taken and not implemented, Ccpur in good time will soon be a semi-desert.

THE BSNL TELEPHONE BILLS:

The BSNL is well known for its 'all line to the route dialed by you are busy, please try after sometime' or the usual 'dial kiya number abhi kharab hai'. The BSNL service is quite reliable in terms of ' No Net Work Service' or 'Check your operator service'.

The BSNL Telephone exchange in CCpur has gone a step further, the random means in which the telephone bills are disbursed by the telecom departments lacks logic, and is of much concern… a clear deviation from norm. The Telephone bills are usually dumped casually in one paan-dukan or a local P.C.O. and if you fail to clear your bills beyond the deadline, your phone line is efficiently cut.

Most of the time , the telephone bills never reached the intended subscribers and if the subscribers fails to clear his pending bills like mentioned earlier his phone would be promptly cut. How was the subscriber supposed to pay his bills when the telephone bills never reach him? The Telecom Dept in Ccpur is efficient in cutting up people phone line, but it's a really regrettable that the same cannot be said about their disbursement of telephone bills.

These days in a clear departure from norms, rules and accepted procedure – Young man who have nothing to do with the Telecom Dept. would collect the bills dumped at will in some shops and local phone booths, and would take the trouble of delivering the phone bills to the subscribers for a sum of Rs 5/- or Rs 10/-. Sad but true, this is the way the telephone bills reach the subscribers, and the people don't mind paying a few rupees than having their phone lines cut; for the restoration of the phone line is another real ordeal marked by red-tapism, and the arrogance of the telephone line man.

We the Citizens, have to pay an extra rupees for what is our right – bills should be duly disbursed to each of the subscriber's house/office by the telecom department. Why the bills have to pass through the hands of middle-men?? The telecom department should ensured that the bills are rightfully disbursed through proper channel to the subscribers and not through some third party who charge us for their act of 'philanthropy'

Everything in Ccpur is of a second hand standard; there is no proper drainage system in the town, no proper basic amenities. When there is a burst of rain, the water from the drain will spill over to the road, and all the dirt – broken bottles, cans, slippers, plastic bag and what not would lie fully exposed on the road. For the Love of God! This town is going nowhere. Development here is a word long forgotten. Communalism based on linguistic chauvinism has numbed the humanism that was instilled in us by God.

The Government Departments located here in the District are not at par with their counterparts in the other districts in terms of facilities, funds received, and infrastructure. Take for example the case of the Police Department in Ccpur, the vehicle they have at their disposal are nothing but 'Junks on Wheels' barely drivable.

The Manipur Government has not replaced the vehicles that were consigned to flames during the ZSF agitation; the town garbage pick-up truck is yet to be replaced. The D.C. Mr. A.K. Sinha, IAS, on his own initiative is using a truck (a tata 407) from another department to clear the garbage dump in the various parts of the town, as the Government has is yet to arrange a vehicle for garbage clearance.

Rusted Junks on Wheels is all that the CCpur Police have to be content with; and the public cannot expect them to render service like 'Super-Cops' when the Government has not equipped them with the necessary resources and facilities. In my personal opinion the CCPUR Police & the other entire Government department deserve a better treatment and a fair deal than this. I am sure the Manipur Government is aware of all this.

But who cares? No one cares… Ccpur own sons and daughter blinded by communalism are also the ones to blame for this sorry state of affairs. But the biggest reason is the step-motherly attitude of the Government at Imphal towards the Ccpur and the hill-district in general, and the higher powers who siphoned off the shares of the Hill-District in terms of resources, finances, and basic food and civil supply

Ccpur is indeed the second largest town after Imphal; Ccpur is also a town that has been over looked and denied its rightful share of development and progress by its own sons and daughters internecine bloody feuds and the lack of concern and sincerity by respective governments at Imphal.

Ccpur is also 'the Second hand town'.

Abel Hmar, resident of CCpur, writes regularly to e-pao.net
He can be contacted at [email protected]
This article was webcasted on May 28, 2006.

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