Missing the 20 Smart Cities list : Congested Imphal city
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 04 2016 -

Imphal did not make the grade.

Not included in the list of 20 cities to be developed as Smart Cities and while it is tough to say how the criteria was worked out, it should give some level of comfort to the State Government that a good number of prominent cities, such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru too did not make it to the list of 20 cities.

No universal definition of what a Smart City is but it remains that there are still a lot that the State Government can do to make Imphal more liveable.

For starters, the Government should study how to expand the city horizontally instead of crowding the already congested capital city.

As things stand today the commercial areas of Imphal, notably Paona Keithel, Thangal Keithel, BT Road are extremely crowded at any point of time and some thoughts ought to be given on how to minimise the crowd here.

On the other hand it is difficult to expect anything positive from the Government given the fact that it came up with the ludicrous idea of housing the women vendors from the Ima Keithels along the congested stretch of Thangal bazar some time back.

It was only after MLA Kh Joykishan of Thangmeiband AC led the protest against the nonsensical idea of the Government that the plan had to be rolled back.

So what can the people actually expect from the Government which just does not seem to look beyond the immediate commercial areas of Imphal ?

The ongoing construction work for a market complex at the ground of the erstwhile Tombisana High School ground is a case in point.

That the Government has taken extra care to incorporate seismic design in the upcoming market complex is noteworthy, but does it actually make any sense to make the commercial areas of Imphal more crowded ?

It would have worked out much better if the vacant plot had been turned into a parking space for vehicles coming to the commercial areas of Imphal.

The Government may construct a three or four storey building and reserve one or two floors for parking space while the rest may be leased out for commercial purposes.

The point is, as things stand today, the commercial centres of Imphal are extremely crowded and the Government should be looking for ways to minimise the crowd here and one answer would be to look for ways on how to expand Imphal horizontally.

What has happened to the plan of the Government to relocate the vehicle workshops situated along the Thangal bazar to Khoyathong stretch ?

A question worth exploring despite missing the bus to the list of 20 Smart Cities.