Power tariff drive and unfinished works : Overwhelmingly farcical
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 20, 2012 -

Jointly inaugurated on December 3 last year by none less than the Prime Minister of the country and the UPA Chairperson and nowhere near the finishing line even after a lapse of seven months and clearly the State Government has scripted a sort of a record for giving a new definition to the understanding of ‘inaugurated.’

The Inter-State Bus Terminus today stands as one inert, colossal structure mutely testifying the character of the Government.

It is the same case with the City Convention Centre, the Imphal Sewerage Project, the new auditorium of the Manipur Film Development Corporation and numerous other projects, such as the Nambul river project, the road widening exercise along Waheng Leikai, the RIMS road etc.

Trust the Government to bandy these projects, which have taken more than their share of the pound of flesh, as feathers in their cap and the perfect recipe of turning everything on its head and befooling the public has been whipped out.

Dumb down the intellect of the people with some dazzling high rise structure seems to be the call of the Government and there is nothing to gloss over this.

The system reeks of something more than rotten inside and it is in keeping with the character of the Government that the Electricity Department has announced that it is going ahead with yet another round of intense drive to collect outstanding power tariff from the consumers.

The refusal to learn from the past is typical of the present dispensation. In one swift step, the Electricity Department is once again falling back on the old and time tested alibi that non-payment of electric tariff is the main cause for the acute power shortage crippling the people and the place.

Such a mindset is farcical and insults the mental faculty of the people. Is it a case of the consumers refusing to pay their power tariff or is it a case of the Electricity Department failing to collect the tariff from the consumers ?

The failure to file any charge sheets against defaulters in the last such drive tells many a story and it is this malaise that the Electricity Department should be looking to mend.

All noise and no substance was what the last drive demonstrated before one and all and there is something distinctly uncomfortable over the way in which the Government has been whipping out one formula after the other to deal with all the pressing issues besetting the people and the land.

Whether it is the interminably long time it has taken to give the finishing touch to the Imphal Sewerage Project, the ISBT, the City Convention Centre, the marathon time it took to repair the RIMS road or the wishy-washy steps taken up by the Electricity Department to collect power tariff, all point to a system in place which could be to the benefits of certain class of people.

No one has to exercise one's grey matter to conclude who come under this certain class of people.

But who cares ? Not the public, not the civil society organisations and certainly not the set of people who come in the garb of the popularly elected representatives of the people.

The indifference of the public to issues which directly affect their daily existence has proved to be the perfect foil for the existence of such a system which bleeds the majority for the interests of a minority few.