Rivers in ICU
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: April 11 2015 -

All the rivers in Manipur are moribund and are in the ICU and these have become the breeding grounds of many incurable deadly diseases and air pollutants.

Today’s picture frame is quite different from what was seen 50 years ago.

In those days the water of even the Nambul river was clean, germ free and many families used it for washing, bathing, cooking and drinking.

Occasionally a flotilla of country canoes rowed up to Waheng Leikai from Meijrao and other rural areas bringing fish, vegetables, earthen potteries, faggots of firewood and many others for sale at the Khwairamband market.

But today the knee-deep putrid and stinking stagnant water is poisonous and foul smelling and pollutes the air. The stench wafts through the residential areas posing health hazards to the people.

The families, hotels, drinking joints, shop keepers and other traders in the market dump their garbage in the Nambul river. There are flotsam and various other items in the stagnant water.

These are carried away by the strong current only when there are heavy downpours and this is posing a threat to the Loktak lake since all rivers fall into it.

As if these were not enough several families had constructed their open pit latrine at the river banks. There are rampant encroachments in the river banks.

Some more enterprising ones have constructed cattle sheds and enclosures where pigs are penned.

During the president’s rule interregnum some years back the adviser to the governor had taken some steps to dredge the river beds up to Heirangoithong.

But it did not have the desired result since the campaign did not last long and did not go beyond Heirangoithong rendering it to a mere cosmetic exercise to splurge money on the publicity stunt.

The only source of water for the government and private water suppliers is the rivers in Imphal.

But all of them are bone dry now and it is a mystery where the private suppliers do get their water. It is also equally astounding that so far there is no outbreak of water borne diseases.

Turning a deaf ear to the orchestrated cry the PHED simply stopped supplying water without explaining to the tax payers and the government as a whole had no time for the people or the parched fields.

But there is a population explosion in Imphal following internal and external migration which was never regulated.

While workers from other states sneak into Manipur round the clock those who can afford to buy land in and around Imphal scramble for land.

There is even an association for some villages whose members get financial assistances from among the members to buy land in Imphal.

Some feeble attempts were made to educate the riparian residents on the need to keep the rivers clean. However there was no useful result.

In the 21st century Manipur must be the only place where the government is depending on these rivers which are euphemism for mountain streams for supplying water.

It has been shown time and again that it is funny to depend on the vagaries of nature in this manner.

Once the rivers are dead the people will be forced to migrate elsewhere.

After all our forefathers had migrated centuries ago from the south east Asian countries and we still have our roots in those countries.