Khuga dam yet to throb with life
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, February 11 2009: A couple of decades down the line, Khuga multi-purpose project in Churachadpur's Mata village is yet to achieve any of its intended purpose as it neither irrigates any field nor generates a drop of drinking water and still lacks even the basic sign of a power house, leave alone the power it was supposes to generate.

Efforts to contact the IFCD Minister N Biren to get his side of the story proved futile.

The office of the EE at Khuga stands with no one in attendance

Highly acclaimed once for its supposed date with the Prime Minister, the Khuga dam as it is locally known still has a long way to go before it meets the targeted purpose.

For now it serves nothing, but a fishing spot for the few locals.

With no activities in sight at the dam site or within the district, Khuga Dam defies over and again the hope it has generated all these years.

Comparing the devastation it has caused to the submerged villages to that of its achievements, Khuga dam appears to be a failure.

It merely is a waste of resources, be it in monetary or in terms of human habitation.

Officially it was claimed that about 20 kms on the eastern canal and about half of that on the eastern canal was functional.

But, a reality check conducted today by The Sangai Express found otherwise.

On the eastern front water on the canal was visible a little beyond Misao Lhamvom village, a few meters from the site where it had collapsed sometime back.

On the western front the water tops at Mata village, merely 2 kms from the dam.

Less than half a dozen IFCD employees were present at the dam site when this correspondent visited the site today.

When enquired, the employees, mostly low grade staff, said they could not recollect the last time their officers attended office.

It has been long, was all that they could utter.

Manned by the para-military force BSF the dam wore a deserted look today, and there was no sign of the slightest activity.

A group of children who had to walk through the canal near Misao Lhahvom village seem to be the only sign of activity at the dam.

"Passages over the canal that divide us from our jhum fields have been built for the third time but none of them works," said Semkhomang Misao, the village chief.

All three bridges built for the villagers to cross the canal in the recent past collapsed immediately after its construction or even as the construction was on, he added.

Some official hesitantly claimed that there was in-fact some activities on the canal at Kumbi area, yet the objective behind such a hectic effort on that far away location was a mystery.

In reality the department is struggling to even let the water reach the 5 km mark near Misao Lhahvom.

Seepage on a great scale could be witnessed all along from the spot that was restored by the department near Misao Lhahvom till the last point where water have reached so far in the eastern canal.

The power house that will supposedly generate power is yet come up as even the building itself is struggling for completion.