Looking beyond the tough words
- Imphal Times Editorial :: October 19 2017 -

Fear leads to war; peace begins with trust.

Much has been discussed, dissected and written about the way things are being handled by the state Government regarding various issues that has been proving to be more of an impediment to the growth and progress of the state.

While it would not be too far from the truth to state that the state Government is indeed putting up efforts to usher in peace and progress, yet it seems, going by the varied issues and undesirable social developments and unrest, that for every step forward, the society is forced back two steps.

Just when the people in the state is starting to enjoy almost uninterrupted power supply for perhaps the first time ever, comes the ever present problem of panic buying, resulting in the stockists and suppliers in the state taking undue advantage of the unfortunate consumers and making a killing in profits.

The most prominently visible example, and one which has been much talked and written about is the petrol pumps or filling stations operating in the state.

It must be said for them that their sense of timing is uncanny, so much so that people have started predicting the law and order situation judging from their uncanny ability to stay abreast of any development, especially the unwanted ones.

One then cannot help but wonder the plans by the CAF & PD Minister of ensuring continuous supply of transport fuel to the public - a welcome and necessary decision which was even put into practice, albeit for a very brief period.

The reason for irregularities of such a novel step, however, is best known to the state Government itself.

One another important issue which was lost amongst the rising din of social unrest is that of clean water supply.

Without going further into the sorry state of affairs regarding the water supply and its management, or rather mismanagement, suffice to state that the rapidly increasing presence of private water supply carriers in the state bears testimony to the efficiency or otherwise of the water supply department in the state.

That the people in the state have taken these glaring lacunae for granted perhaps speaks of the level of disillusionment and loss of belief placed by the public on the government.

The progress for other aspects of developments which tends to have an impact on the society does not fare much better.

Education, especially in Government run institutions, for instance, continues to flounder after a brief spell of positive promise despite what was billed as radical changes that would bring the desired changes, in short, instituting Model Schools for initiating changes, have proved to be a no show (May be the present Govt. don’t think it as a good action initiated by the earlier govt).

While a few may put down the rapidly increasing unrest and agitations of the public on various issues to irrational restlessness or impatience, yet the hard fact remains that there is a very real and rapid decline in the socio-economic progress and governance with a correspondingly widening rift between the Government and the public.

While it would be evidently unfair to put the blame for everything squarely on the state Government, it would augur well for those in power to trace and weed out any and all non-performing entities from its system.

After all, trust needs to be earned, not a mere announcement or in other word “an appeasement policy”.