Remote Kwatha reaps NREGS benefits
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 01 2010: With inter-village roads (IVR) and other roads made with funds from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the remote Kwatha village is literally reaping maximum benefits from the central sponsored scheme.

Kwatha located about 7 Kms East from Kwatha junction near Khudengthabi along Imphal-Moreh section of NH 39 is a small village inhabited by around 66 families.

The village has total population of a little more than 300.Their primary means of livelihood are lumbering, fishing, hunting and preparation of soibum (fermented bamboo soot).

Preparation of soibum being the most reliable source of earning money, Kwatha villagers have adopted the same occupation as the most predominant one.

Road to Progress: Road constructed by Kwatha villagers with NREGS fund provides vital link between Kwatha and outside world

It has been a general practice for each and every household to utilise maximum strength and time in preparation of soibum as much as they can.

However, all their efforts and labour could not achieve any sort of economic upliftment as the roads connecting the village to outside world was extremely pathetic since many years back.

For Kwatha, April 4, 1999 is a remarkable day.

It was on this day, the then Chief Minister W Nipamacha visited the village and inaugurated a Public Health Sub-Centre there.

The villagers thought a wind of change was blowing when they heard the Chief Minister promising to address their various woes.

But till date, many of the assurances made by the State Government to the villagers have not been fulfilled.

The villagers rightly believed their economic condition could never make any improvement without appropriate development in transport infrastructure.

Even today, the foremost wish of the villagers is improvement of transport infrastructure.

With the launch of NREGS in the village, the villagers now possess job cards.

With the help of these job cards and NREGS funds, Kwatha villagers have so far constructed different types of road of total length 20 Kms.

This includes an IVR connecting Kwatha to Longngarkhong which is about 4 Kms long.

In addition to this IVR, the villagers have made roads leading to different directions for use in fishing, hunting, lumbering and searching young bamboos for preparing soibum.

Talking to The Sangai Express, secretary of Kwatha Village Authority, Takhellambam Nando said they can now travel to farther places after reaching Leibi village from the Maring village of Nongngarching which has been connected to Kwatha by the newly developed IVR.

Earlier, the villagers encountered various difficulties while travelling through jungles for fishing, hunting, felling trees and searching bamboo soots as most of these routes were connected by mule-tracks made by the preceding generations.

However, following launch of NREGS in the village, these routes have been considerably improved and widened, giving much relief to the villagers, Nando said.

Earlier, there was no sign of the presence of a Government in the village and the villagers were left to struggle alone.

But now, some sort of Government assistance have been received.

Although, Kwatha is known far and wide for its soibum, the villagers could not produce and market the same product in any decent quantity because of the unreliable transport infrastructure or total absence of it.

But today the village has seen a great change.

The villagers are producing much larger quantities of soibum.

This was boosted by the roads made by the villagers themselves under NREGS, coupled with the 7 Kms long road developed by the Government which connects Kwatha Lamkhai to Kwatha village.

These roads are now motorable, Nando said.

With the roads now motorable, each household has been producing 800 Kgs of soibum at the average per year since last year which is double the quantity produced in the previous years.

Coupled with abundance of bamboo groves, the villagers are now more adept in making soibum.

The woes of the villagers have been considerably mitigated as the roads used by them for searching bamboo soots have been greatly improved.

Kwatha villagers can live a decent life by producing only soibum if the 7 kms long road connecting Kwatha Lamkhai to Kwatha is black-topped, the secretary confided.