Akangjungla
“Ayah! Itu rasta toh eeeman beya ase ho...” This phrase of complaint has never gone out of perspective for people in Nagaland. If there is one thing that Naga people have been consistently sharing as an everyday experience, then it is the awful road incidents. Rural or urban, capital city or the village on the edge of the state, location does not matter. One of the striking underlying facts is that bad roads have made its way to every nook and corner of Nagaland.
While the larger part of the world is boosting good roads to support economic development and tourism; Nagas are not making any progress from the pity business of filling up and repairing potholes. The pothole activities are now the central agenda for the village councils, mothers’ organisation and youth bodies as they make their annual plans. Citing reasons such as ‘taking note of the deplorable road conditions’ or ‘failing to get positive response from the government,’ the citizens are undertaking road repairs in the locality, the main road and even beyond, with resources generated from their own ends. “Olup hoilei bei panai dei bo!” has become the mission.
To refresh memories, in the year 2015, the Fingerprint team launched a mass campaign against the bad road in the stretch of Dhobinala-Signal-Thahekhu in Dimapur. Media houses in Nagaland - Nagaland Post, The Morung Express and Eastern Mirror joined the 15-day media campaign to support the cause in public interest. ‘Mission Pothole’ in 2012 spearhead by The Naga Blog, a forum on Facebook heightened the focus on the miserable condition of roads in Nagaland. And likewise, several similar missions were undertaken with the hope to bring attention on the need for better, if not endurable roads.
Road infrastructure is the most important of all public assets. It accelerates economic and social development to make a nation grow. Management of road asset to avoid devaluation of asset is therefore, a major focus for governments in many countries. In Nagaland, the narration is a different one. The weight of the problem is not about the lanes and highways; it is about roads everywhere. The people are deprived of good road connectivity. Past the sarcastic statement, ‘The potholes are not on the road but the road is on the potholes,’ there must be a solution.
Nagaland has quite a sizable area and population, and still the problem has not been addressed even once, atleast for record sake. The challenges may be many for the government or the department concerned alone to tackle the task of laying down good roads. It is also understandable, in the absence of expertise and advanced machineries, that perhaps may contribute to hitches in constructing exceptional standard roads; nevertheless, one they can avoid from the first place is, achieving lower quality of works on higher costs.
The difficult terrain in the state also contributes to the crisis. It constantly demands for check on landslides and flooding. Here, perhaps the solution would be implementing planned road system which should take care of proper drainage and culvert provisions. To achieve such a system, engineering and managerial expertise is a requisite but more than that, it would require the sincerity and commitment of those expertises to construct sustainable infrastructure.
For so long, the conditions of the roads have been deteriorating and receiving less attention that it deserves. Unless the responsible authorities encounter an awakening, this indispensable asset for the communities will continue to invite huge cost of loss on the state economy and also remain one of the main reasons for the misery and unhappiness of the citizens.
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