Nature’s warning
- Imphal Times Editorial :: April 04 2017 -

When men starts disregarding the subtle balance of nature or neglect its inherent importance to the very existence of other life forms, she sometimes showed her wrath to make the humans refresh their fickle memories and reemphasise her importance.

For decades the people of the region have totally forgotten that it is mother nature that has been making the lives of every living creature enjoy the temperate and lush green atmosphere.

In a world where technology had reached its height, where leaders of the western nations talk about building modern cities under the sea or somewhere in the sky, we in this portion of the earth do not know how to make good use of what Mother Nature has so generously gifted us.

It is a known fact that during dry season people of this region faced acute shortage of water and during rainy season the place is usually flooded. This phenomenon has been experiencing by the people for the past few decades.

No people of this generation have ever heard our great great grandfathers facing such a disastrous phenomenon.

This clearly shows that the present vicious circle of floods and droughts is the creation of this generation. One cannot simply blame on the mass deforestation as a result of the drastic situation being faced by the people.

Politicians and those who are running the government cannot make their way out of this by blaming the citizens for not following the orders of the government.

Draughts and floods which were once only learnt through geography books and newspapers have now become routine event of this little state since the last two three decades.

As for the Imphalites from a small child who can read and write to those who hold top post in the government departments or those doing doctoral degree in any discipline, everyone knows that the kind of flood or draught that we the people of Manipur are facing every year is a man made one created by lack of proper planning and/or implementations on water management.

Every time when the people faced such a situation there will be much hue and cry from the side of the general public demanding the government for a proper water policy for the state.

Even at the state assembly, some of the MLAs had brought up the issue and drew the attention of the government for proper management of water by framing a water policy.

Concerned Ministers in the government assured to look into the matter without fail but no visible action has been seen taken up.

This is perhaps because those in power and are responsible for looking after this section of department – say , for example the Irrigation and Flood Control Department (IFCD) and Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) seems to be deliberately waiting for occurrence of flood or draught.

Everyone knows that when there is flood the Ministers or the authority of the government department looking after it are entitle to spend huge amount of money in the name of taking up relief measures.

This fund so reportedly utilized, only benefitted those who are actually assigned to utilize it. So, if there is no draught or flood then there are no special packages or huge relief funds to be utilized or rather managed to arrange in predetermined shares amongst themselves.

Which means that those in the government never wanted a pragmatic solution to the floods or draughts in this state which have adequate amount of rainfall every year.

Hopefully, the new government, continuing with its no-nonsense approach towards accelerating the pace of progress in the state brings about that much required change for the better.