A bird’s-eye-view of Mokokchung town central. An intensive anti-alien campaign has Naga businessmen taking over the town’s commerce but poor sense of salesmanship, customer service and incompetent business aptitudes remain a challenge.
Our Correspondent
Mokokchung | October 19
Starting from the year 2007 after the Ao Kaketshir Mungdang (AKM) initiated the anti-illegal immigrants campaign, ‘Survival 2007’, the market scenario in Mokokchung town has drastically changed. Local educated youths are establishing businesses, filling up the commercial gap created after all illegal migrants were asked to leave town. However, three years on since Survival 2007, challenges remain before the prospect of making Mokokchung town a commercial centre, especially for the eastern areas of Nagaland.
In an exclusive interview with The Morung Express on Monday in her office chambers, Mokokchung’s Deputy Commissioner Lithrongla G Chishi strongly lamented that the town closes down after 3 or 4 pm. Mokokchung being strategically located linking other districts such as Longleng, Tuensang, Mon and Zunheboto can become an ideal commercial hub for the people living in those neighboring regions.
She maintained that shopkeepers should be ‘more open-minded’ and should be ‘customer and tourist friendly’, as Mokokchung is a place through which people from other districts pass through. Saying that the people should have a ‘vision’ the Mokokchung DC asserted that business owners should try to establish a wholesale market in the town.
An interesting aspect of Mokokchung business the DC pointed out was the timing of businesses opening and closing. “If you go out in the morning around 6 am then all the non-local shops would be open. Our local shops open by around nine to ten; so what can you earn or sell by opening the shops at around 9 and closing by 3 pm?” Chishi wondered.
Long-distance night buses, especially from Tuensang and Zunheboto halt at Mariani (Assam) as drivers know that shops and restaurants in Mokokchung would be closed for the night.
The DC maintained that business owners should have a sense of competition: if others open at 6am, they should open at 5am; if others close at 4pm, they should close at 5pm. She also lamented that the people from other neighboring districts are moving to other towns to buy their provisions as Mokokchung market cannot cater to varied needs.
“Earlier people from Tuensang or Longleng used to come to Mokokchung to buy, now they go to Assam saying that the shops are not opened or that stocks are unavailable,” said Lithrongla, the first woman DC for Mokokchung, taking office on April 19, 2010.
“Don’t let our town die,” she appealed to business owners, “we have to be more disciplined and we should compete to make our business grow.”
The words of the Mokokchung Deputy Commissioner gains significance as some section of the citizens opine that salesmanship in Mokokchung town is not customer-friendly. Some have been quite vocal maintaining that the businessmen need to change their ‘take it or leave it attitude’.
Many feel that the local people still need some time to learn the fine art of salesmanship. It is having an adverse affect on the commerce of the town, and ultimately affecting the entire society.
With rapid changes taking place in the commercial world, and with business becoming one of the main livelihoods of the people here, a complete and systematic overhaul of the market system is needed to cater not only to citizens of the Mokokchung but also to the people of other districts, who have to go to either Dimapur or Assam to do their shopping.
Also, it is opined that it is not the government, but the people who have to play a major role in making Mokokchung’s market vibrant and profitable. The first lesson to learn would be a market that is profitable judging by the number of customers each day and not by the amount of profit earned.
