By Imlisanen Jamir
The Dimapur Municipal Council’s recent notice prohibiting the dumping of construction and demolition waste at roadsides, drains and open spaces is clear, sensible and entirely familiar. Such dumping is banned. Violators will face penalties. Waste may be disposed of at the designated dumpsite on payment of a fee. None of this is new. What is new is only the paper it is printed on.
Dimapur does not suffer from a shortage of rules. It suffers from a shortage of consequences. Illegal dumping of construction debris has been visible for years, piled along roads, tipped into drains and abandoned in open spaces, often under the cover of darkness and sometimes in full daylight. This does not happen because contractors, builders or individuals are unaware of municipal regulations. It happens because the city has quietly taught everyone that the risk of being caught is low and the cost of being penalised even lower.
A rule that exists without consistent enforcement does not function as a rule. It becomes a suggestion. Over time, repeated suggestions create a habit, and habits harden into what citizens come to accept as normal. In Dimapur, the normalisation of construction waste lying in public spaces is the predictable result of years of uneven and occasional enforcement.
This problem becomes more serious when viewed against the city’s rapid physical growth. Dimapur is building at a pace that outstrips its civic discipline. Every new building, extension or renovation produces waste. That waste does not disappear. It must go somewhere. When it is not properly managed, it ends up where it causes the most damage: in drains that clog during the monsoon, along roads that deteriorate faster than they are repaired, and in low-lying areas that flood with increasing regularity.
Urban growth without urban responsibility carries costs, even if those costs are not immediately visible. Flooding, damaged infrastructure and public health risks are not accidental outcomes. They are the direct result of predictable inputs. Construction produces debris. Debris blocks drainage. Blocked drainage produces flooding. Ignoring one step in this chain does not break it.
The municipal notice allows disposal of construction and demolition waste at the council’s dumpsite for a fee of Rs.200. The amount is not unreasonable. It suggests that the problem is not financial. It is practical. If dumping illegally remains easier, faster and safer than following the rule, then the city is unintentionally encouraging the very behaviour it claims to prohibit.
Cities educate their citizens not through announcements, but through consistency. When violations are ignored, people learn that rules are optional. When penalties are applied routinely and without exception, behaviour changes. Clean cities are not built by stern language or repeated notices. They are built by boring, everyday enforcement that leaves little room for negotiation.
The DMC’s notice is not wrong. It is simply incomplete. Without visible and sustained enforcement, it will join a long list of regulations that exist in theory and fail in practice. Dimapur does not need more warnings. It needs the quiet certainty that rules, once issued, will actually be followed through.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
