By Imkong Walling
The past week witnessed two apparently significant events in Nagaland as far as infrastructure development, or the lack of thereof, was concerned. One was a highly publicised visit of the Committee on Government Assurances to Dimapur’s Multi-Disciplinary Sports Complex (MDSC), a stadium now almost 2 decades in the making.
The other was yet another controversy rocking the long stalled, and yearned for, Nagaland foothills road, now over 50 years in the pipeline.
The years taken to build the 20,000-seater Indira Gandhi (IG) Stadium in Kohima pales in comparison to the number of years constructing the MDSC has so far clocked. Developing the MDSC was announced over 20 years ago by a euphoric Neiphiu Rio-led DAN-I government fresh from an electoral victory, with construction starting in 2006. It is not to claim that the IG Stadium was an exemplar of efficiency, it took some 16 years to complete it, starting from the laying of the foundation stone in 1986 to its inauguration in 2003.
Fund constraint has been cited as the main reason for the delay in both cases. The stalled MDSC, in particular, has become a meme for governmental neglect, and the foothills road has exemplified the havoc the allure of lucrative government contracts can wreak on public infrastructure projects
After years of sidelining, the state government sent a committee of legislators to the MDSC, which, unfortunately was no more than a publicity stunt to apparently, in the words of the committee chairperson, “Show that the government is not sleeping over the issue.”
About a month earlier, Chief Minister Rio addressed the ubiquitous question, attributing the problem to the cessation of funding from the Centre following the scrapping of the Planning Commission and the subsequent establishment of the NITI Aayog.
In the meantime, two cricket grounds — one a 10,000-seater — came up in Sovima, and a third apparently was on the way, as announced in 2021. A Regional Centre for Sporting Excellence was added soon after in 2022. More recently, two football stadia were built reportedly in record time in Chümoukedima district.
Meanwhile, the foothills road project went on to be marred by controversy after controversy, largely revolving around bidding and awarding of work contract. At the same time, the government conveniently played the fund constraint tune on a project regarded as the “People’s/Survival Road,” and even winning a cool moniker— Trans-Nagaland Expressway.
It was maintained all along, since it won state government sanction in 2013, that the project would be shielded from political influence, in other words— nepotism.
The project may have received a new lease of life after years on the budget back-burner. The governmental support, however, and unsurprisingly, came with strings attached.
Two firms, owned by the kith and kin of the Chief Minister, conveniently happened to be in the list of contractors.
Like a picture worthy of a thousand words, an idiom can succinctly give perspective to a situation worth an essay. And, if there was an idiom, none would be fitter than ‘in fits and starts’ to describe the two projects.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
