Why Manipur is poor 4

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Why & how Manipur is poor & backward?
— Trade & Commerce / Tourism —
Part 4

By: L. Robindro *

Factors affecting directly to the current socio-economic situation.

6. Lack of indigenous participation in trade & commerce: We, Manipuri people, are not fond of trade & commerce activities, it may be by nature or by tradition. I think we can change it & start participating in every competitive trade & commerce arena so that it will help in prevention of further infiltration.

Today we feel the heat of Infiltration. Tomorrow it may create another big problem to us. My concept here is, let us try to have minimum problems. As every one knows that ‘more the problems more the backward’. When we have less & minimum problems we can go forward & grow further.

In Manipur non-manipuris are more active in the trade & commerce activities hence they control most of our daily necessities, they control our stomach. This is where we are lacking far behind than other states. This gap has to be filled up slowly.

REMEDIES: We should start participating in the competitive trade & commerce activities right away. There should be no second thinking on it. There must be a mechanism to check these infiltration, like much talked ‘Inner-Line-Permit system’.

Many people may disagree with the idea but let me put my opinion in next para. It is well know that why ‘Inner-Line-Permit’ system was removed from Manipur? It was to have a better tourism etc.

7. Tourism: Basically tourism is a big & good industry where thousands of people can be employed directly or indirectly thereby enhancing the economy of our state to multiple folds. E.g. Kerala, J&K, Rajasthan & Goa, they have nothing but a good tourism industry.

And to have a good income from tourism, a state needs to have good hotels, other tourist facilities, security and a good transport system like taxi service etc. Do we have these facilities at home? Everybody knows how many good hotels are there in Manipur, the place where NO star-ranking hotels are present & the place where the value of a human life is equivalent to a wild life.

The basic purpose of removal of ‘Inner-Line-Permit’ has failed henceforth. So, we need a mechanism like ‘Inner-Line-Permit’ system to check & prevent further Infiltration.

In fact Manipur is a land of treasures, the place where no major problems of water, plenty of lands & forest are available. Compare with those states where people die due to severe water scarcity. Even they develop many artificial cultivable lands, parks and fun world etc. Why can’t we create it or make it? We are far better than those states.

REMEDIES: First we need to have/construct basic tourist facilities & infrastructures before we talk of developing tourism. Later security is the 2nd priority which we should create. Tourism can never be successful without a good security system.

Assuming we have all the tourist facilities & infrastructure and we have the ‘Inner-line-Permit’ system, it may create some inconveniences to the tourists. To avoid such situations we can establish another mechanism in which there must be tourist offices opened at different cities/places to issue On-the-spot ‘Inner-line-permits’ to the tourists, to facilitate a smooth handling & tourist convenience.

8. Non-utilization of Natural Resources. Are we properly utilizing the nature given Agricultural resources & cultivable lands and forest? We have lot of treasures in the form of medicine/herbal plants hidden & unexplored in the forest. They are our real & nature treasure. We have potential for establishing paper mill, a factory for matchsticks and incense sticks (Agarbati) etc.

Let us start concentrating more on other non-conventional methods of cultivation like medicine plantation, horticulture, sericulture, fishery, poultry farms, piggy farms, etc… We are already doing well in Orange & Pineapple cultivation & the business.

Some of the above cultivations are totally depend on the availability of water. At present how many dams are operational in Manipur? If the construction of any dam goes on like the way Khuga dam (started in 1983) did/does, then we are heading towards the old feudal age.

Our state govt. has to do a lot in water supply & Irrigation system with sincerity, honesty & a bit faster.

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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