Why Manipur is poor 3

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E-Pao! Education - Why & how Manipur is poor & backward? - 3

Why & how Manipur is poor & backward?
— Education system / Transport System —
Part 3

By: L. Robindro *

Factors affecting directly to the current socio-economic situation.

3. Education system: Presently we all are aware that our education system has failed to achieve the primary goal. There is no efficient education system in our state.

The whole system is very badly affected by the lack of peace & harmony due to frequent strikes, bandhs/protests etc. And at the same time there is total lack of quality education.

Due to the above factors, parents in general & students in particular, are left with NO options at home, thereby forcing them to study outside Manipur. It is believed that 90% of the Manipuris, staying outside of Manipur, are students. And it is estimated that there are approx. 40,000-50,000 students studying outside Manipur.

Let’s assume there are 40,000 students studying outside and each of them gets Rs.3000-4000 every month for their monthly expenditure. Few students get scholarship & grants but they are very less in number & countable.

Every month Manipur loose Rs. (40,000 x 3,500, average amount) = Rs. 14 crore and in a year Manipur loose Rs. 14 crore x 12 months = Rs. 168 crore. It is well known we can do, establish or construct many things with such huge amount of money every month or every year.

During such bad socio-economy situation, if such huge amount of money is pulled out from already backward & poor state like Manipur, what would be the economical situation in next few years?

We are loosing Rs.14 crore very month & Rs 168 crore every year, what would happen in next 15-20 years if we don’t find a solution now?

At the same time, some anti-social elements are collecting some percentage of money from every state employee, thereby affecting to the work efficiency directly or indirectly.

For an example, they collect money from each teaching professionals, even from a primary school teacher, the lowest salaried teacher and thereby affecting seriously the morale of the teachers. Hence it directly affects the education system in general. God knows when it will stop.

REMEDIES: It may NOT be possible to have all the required infrastructures overnight (in a short time).

It is necessary to understand these issues deeply by both public and the Govt. When it is realized by public then only some constructive things/ways can be done.
The Govt. has to find a quick solution to solve the insurgency problem & its related problems. This insurgency menace is the most hard-hitting problem among the problems. If once it is solved, I think, most of the problems will get solved with the time itself.
And at the same time, the Govt. has to show its transparency, sincerity, and honesty while solving any solution or while doing any construction/establishing a work/project or any other state issues.
State Govt. to adopt alternative employment schemes to employ large educated youth society/community.
State Govt. to establish an efficient & quality education system etc…

4. Failure of Transport System: There was a time, I could get a MSRTC bus & travel to Dimapur, Gauhati etc. Where have gone those days? Instead of improving & expanding it (MSRTC), it failed to exist. Worse of worsens happened. Thanks to the politicians & state bureaucrats of those days.

At present 99.9 % of the state transport is controlled by private operators who can stop plying vehicles at any time for whatsoever the reasons. These private operators are still helping public by proving inadequate transportation even though they face problems due to bad road conditions, unwanted incidents like LOOTING… and other incidents. Our state roads are in terribly bad conditions except few.

Needless to mention they (contractors) are NOT laying (semba/ tha-ba) the roads but COVERING (kup-pa) the potholes & katcha roads. May be the meaning of laying roads is misinterpreted to covering hence affecting the road quality very badly. Thanks to those BABU engineers & thekedars who always look to fill their pockets.

Presently, few anti-social elements started taking contractor’s job and making the situation even worse. May be they forget to serve the people by doing at least a good deed. I hope they will soon realize that without the support from public, they may not able to stand or survive longer.

Meanwhile the absence of systematic & organized state transport operators adds more worsening conditions/situations to every one in their day-to-day life.

And again due to the improper use of parking areas/bus stands, common people are facing a lot of inconveniences every day. Sometimes parking areas are changed without any prior information/notice, thereby creating chaos & many inconveniences to the commuters (people).

Bad road conditions: it directly affects to state economy as Goods carriers & passenger vehicles take more time to reach their destinations thereby consuming more fuels & more time. A goods carrier or a passenger bus consumes more litres of diesel per km while traveling at lower gears at the speed of 20km/l or even less in some areas.

Due to the absence of state govt. transport, people cannot travel anywhere, anytime at low cost as normally done in other states. And private operators do not ply in odd hours fearing of unwanted incidents or other security reasons. Such condition reduces our business & other transaction to half thereby reducing our economy growth to half. There are lots of people willing to work in odd hours. But it does not simply happen in our state.

Since my childhood days the khuman lampak parking area have been there as it is seen today. There have been neither improvement nor expansion. Such beautifully located & centralized location is NOT even taken care for a long time. Same story with other parking areas like Keishampat, Kangla park etc..

REMEDIES: First of all we need to have a new & full-fledged state run transport system. Or Work has to be started for revival of the old transport system into an efficient transport organization. Ticketing system to be introduced in both private & state buses.

State govt. to establish an independent monitoring & review committee for each civil work / project done in Manipur.

Concerned people have to work sincerely, honestly to bring back the faith/trust of the people. Kindly laid the roads as per the BIS standards & please do NOT cover them with some asphalts for the name sake only. Ordinary people like me are fed up of these situations & roads.

Let us do something better for tomorrow & for our future children.

To be continued.....

Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |

L. Robindro, Scientist, R&D, contributes regularly to e-pao.net. He can be contacted at robin_laren(at)hotmail(dot)com . This article was webcasted on May 16th, 2007.

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