Morung Express News
October 15
DIMAPUR: Mpai village, bordering on one of the remotest fringes of Peren district, today at Zeme Baptist Church commemorated it’s Platinum Jubilee year with the flagging off of its first ever transportation service after more than 75 years of villagehood. Two 22-seater buses, one for Mapai as well as another for Benreu Village has been made available after more than decades of living without transportation facilities. Another bus, a 32-seater would also be pressed into service shortly to facilitate links with other villages, it is learnt.
MLA Vatsu Meru, of Peren Constituency, responsible for providing the direct-route bus services, echoed the happiness of the people of Mpai as well as the scores of remote outposts in and around it when he told The Morung Express that a long-held dream of the village’s people to have a bus service has been fulfilled today. The MLA was modest as he said that he was only assisting in his capacity by providing for whatever the people needed as a “down payment to procure a bus”. MLA Meru said that the people in the said areas had been neglected for a long time, without transportation services, electricity and agricultural, irrigational facilities and that it was only fair that the needs of the people be looked into. “(Apart from the bus service for Mpai and Benreu) there are also other welfare projects underway particularly in regard to providing good agricultural and irrigational facilities” he said adding that for more than 11 years the villagers had been living without electricity and proper approach roads. He also informed that a diversion-road was currently being paved for more accessibility into the interior areas. “About 40% of the road has been completed” he said. MLA Meru while thanking the initiatives and assistance provided by the TK Services Dimapur Diesels and by the Guarantor of the project, Kevinino Meru, Director of Arts and Culture, also expressed his appreciation and gratitude to the DAN government for its fulfilling a commitment.
Navsiebu, an Evangelist from Mpai told this paper that there were about 1500 villagers approximately from about 200 households in Mpai but the villagers had been living without basic infrastructural facilities until MLA Meru took active initiative to provide electricity and pave roads for the people in the interior areas of Peren. Elders from both Mpai and Benreu villages disclosed that that for a good many years the people had been appealing to the NST department for buses but till now there has been no response in this regard. Namna Lungalang, a Benreu Village elder told this paper that there plied a private bus for Benreu but had broken down and ever since then transportation and communication had grown extremely difficult for the people. The new bus service has come as a huge relief for the villagers of Mpai, Benreu as well as all the adjacent villages on the constituency’s fringes, they added. Kingamlu, a deacon of Zeme Baptist Church in whose name the bus registration was entered, said he was a happy man.
