It is not for
nothing that the Congress led SPF Government
has earned the infamous sobriquet,
“Percentage” Government. The underlying
meaning behind this term will not be lost on
anyone even to the most politically naive
people. In other words, it means corruption
has become synonymous with the present
Government and whether this will be
reflected in the coming Assembly election
will be known only when the time comes, but
the truth stands that corruption has become
institutionalized and perhaps nothing
illustrates this better than the words of
some contractors who said that the quality
of the work taken up under the Prime
Minister Gramin Sadak Yojana is bound to
suffer.
We have nothing much to comment on the
percentage cuts levied by the underground
organizations, for they are not bound by the
law of the land and they have been declared
outlaws by the Government. However it is a
telling commentary that some contractors
have come out in the open, albeit under the
cloak of anonymity while speaking to the
press, that percentage cuts levied by
different power players literally leave them
with nothing much to execute the work at
hand.
What is
compromised here is the quality of the work
and this in effect means that it is the
people who stand to lose in every sense of
the word. The PMGSY is a Centrally sponsored
scheme launched with the stated objective of
linking all the villages and towns with
motorable roads and given the poor
communication network in the State, this
scheme should ideally come as a boon,
particularly for the people settled in the
far flung places.
Road communication is the index of
development. So many times the media in
Manipur have been highlighting the poor road
networks in the State especially in the far
flung villages of the hill districts. Poor
road communication not only means that some
parts of the State are literally cut off
from the rest of the world but also has a
direct impact on the economy of the place
and people. Agricultural goods produced in
the interior parts of the hill districts
have no takers simply because there is no
way the farmers can transport them to the
market at Imphal or elsewhere.
Non contact with the rest of the people also
mean that there is literally no
communication between the different groups
of people living in the State and in many
ways this has had a direct impact on the
relationship between different communities.
This indirectly leads to a feeling of
alienation amongst the people and in the
present juncture when the threat of a
Greater Lim is hanging like the proverbial
sword of Damocles, robbing the money meant
for road development in a way amounts to
aiding the votaries of the Greater Lim, who
are hell bent on breaking up the territory
of Manipur.
Road network
is not only about connecting a place to
another to aid economic development or other
such activities, but also has immense
potential to promote the ties and
relationship amongst the different
communities living in Manipur. Our stand on
the matter is this. Lay off from development
projects such as the PMGSY, Ministers Sir. |
