Imkong Walling The maiden session of the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly was held with great fervour. The buzz was of a raucous and productive session, more so, over the fact that the NLA got a clearly formidable opposition following a supposedly dull 12th NLA, which for a major part of the term had none warming the opposition bench. The interesting part was limited to that however. There was not much to offer in terms of infrastructure and ground-breaking development. Whatever that was offered was of generalised statements with little or no task-specific agenda. All that the public wanted to hear – all-weather roads, regular power supply, better medical infrastructure in tandem with care and well-staffed education-friendly school buildings – were invariably lost in a din of populist rhetoric, which apparently to the government were welfare and development oriented. While the basics of development remained largely overlooked, another issue of great importance to the state was conspicuously ignored in the supposedly lively Assembly debates – the Nagaland Foothills Road project. A road project proposed way back in the early 1970s, it came as a ray of hope when the state government finally relented in 2013 albeit under much pressure from the civil society. Work to link Dimapur directly with Tizit in Mon along the foothills finally started in December 2013. The road when completed will serve as an alternative to crossing Assam enroute Mokokchung, Mon or Bhandari and importantly would serve as a reliable link to the other districts. Delaying or altering travel itinerary on account of ‘Assam or Karbi Anglong Bandhs’ would become a thing of the past at the same time avoid unnecessary harassment from the Assam Police personnel, who over the years, have displayed a knack for targeting Nagaland-registered vehicles for “chai-paani.” More than the convenience angle, the economic significance of the road is immense. It will, for all practical purposes, serve the interest of the state. Such was the envisioned end-result. But 4 years on, the road has still to see completion or rather has not figured in the priorities of the government as well as the public. The road remains incomplete for a want of Rs. 11 crore. For the record, the then NPF-led DAN government in 2013 had pledged Rs. 80 crore to atleast make the Foothills Road ‘motorable’ - the emphasis being that black-topping was not included. The priority at the time was to carve out a “jeepable” dirt track as a situational route. The government made good on the promise sanctioning an estimated Rs. 70cr in two initial instalments, but the funding stopped there with earth-cutting pending in two sectors. Further, the Doyang Bridge, a crucial element of the Foothills Road, also remains under construction 40 months after work begun in December 2014. The projected completion time for the bridge was 33 months. It was surprising and just as hard to digest that the opposition NPF – the party in power that sanctioned the project - failed to raise the issue in the Assembly. The silence of the ruling PDA was also no less mystifying considering the fact that the present Chief Minister was the head of the government that gave the go ahead to the decades in the pipeline Foothills Road. Earmarking some Rs. 168 crore under “non-development” for maintenance of existing government assets, including roads, was music to the ears. But is that it?
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
