Imphal, Jun 23: New Delhi and Imphal and the entire North East region may be looking forward to the Trans Asian Highway as well as Jiri Tupul rail line, but to the people of Kadi Part IV village in Tamenglong district, the only option left for them to construct a motorable road is to lease out vast tracts of forest land to contractors who in turn build the road for the villagers.

Kadi Part IV is in Tamei sub-division of Tamenglong district and is located 40 kms from Tamei on the Nagaland border.

The village is inhabited by the Liangmei tribe.

Inhabited by about 36 households, the villagers have to lease out large tracts of forest land to contractors to construct a road for them in the absence of any proactive programmes from the side of the Government.

Most of the felled trees are transported to Nagaland as the village is located on the border.

Kadi village produces a good amount of potatoes and cabbages as well as other vegetables and fruits found in the hills of Manipur, but due to the absence of any motorable road, most of the goods fail to reach the market and rot away.

This reporter went to study the situation in this remote village under the rural development reporting fellowship of AMWJU and learnt that vast tracts of forest land are being leased out to contractors for ten years each to build the road.

Speaking to this reporter 38 year old Henry Newmai, who graduated from Oriental College in Imphal, said that the villagers know very well that the Supreme Court has banned timber trade.

However since the Government and other relevant authority has not taken up any positive steps to build a road to connect the village to the outside world, the villagers have no other option except to lease out the forest land, he reasoned.

The potato yield is abundant and so is cabbage and other vegetables, but since there is no motorable road, the only option left for the villagers is to carry the heavy load and trek 40 kms to reach the nearest market, which is Tamei.

At times most of the agriculture products of the village go waste.

Since road connectivity is the only means to receive the fruits of development the villagers have leased out the forest land to the contractors to build the road, explained Henry Newmai further.

Newmai, who is also the secretary of Kadi Village Council said that as per an agreement struck in 2003-2004, a contractor from Chingmeirong, Chaothoi Daimei has been engaged to carve out a 30 km road from the village to Chalwa village in Senapati.

For the road construction work, the contractor has been given a lease of 3 sq km of forest land for a period of 10 years.

The contractor is free to fell any number of trees during the ten year period.

Though the road connecting Chalwa and Kadi is not exactly of the highest standard, the contractor has been able to transport the felled timber from the village to Chalwa.

The villagers are relieved that at least Shaktimans can reach their village now.

To a question on the quantity of trees to be transported by the contractor, Newmai said that it may be anything between 20,000 cubic feet to 30,000 cubic feet.

Elephants are also hired from Assam to ferry the fell trees at the rate of anything between Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000 per year.

Trees from the dense forest are carried by the elephants up to the point where the Shaktimans can come in.

Some of the villages Kada Part IV have also followed suit and they have begun leasing out their forest land to contractors to build the road for them.

A recent agreement has also been reached to build a 30 km stretch of land from Kadi Part 1 to Part IV and Kuilong.

The agreement was reached between the village authority and a gentleman named Tuntum Newmai of Dungnung.

Following the agreement, the contractor has started the road construction work from Kuilong and a forest tract has also been leased out to him.

Following the construction of the Shaktiman road to Kadi Part IV, developmental works have been started at the said village.

The villagers of Kadi Part IV have been rearing pigs and cattle.

Though it was extremely difficult to transport the vegetables to the nearest market by foot, the cattle and pigs were herded through the foot road to the nearest market for sale.

Ironically Kadi Part IV is not included in the Rastri Sam Vikash Yojna for road construction in Tamenglong district and for which a sum of Rs 40 crore has been sanctioned.

Tamenglong DC, T Pamei informed this reporter that the Government will extend all possible help in the road construction work from Kadi Part I to Part IV and Kuilong.

The DC further sad that it has been decided that half the amount released for Kadi under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme would be utilised for constructing a road to Kadi Part IV.

Under this scheme villagers are to be provided 100 days employment by the Government on payment basis, but for Kadi, 50 days will be used for other work while the remaining 50 days will be utilised for building the said road.

Either the DRDA or the Government will provide machinery such a bull dozers for the road construction.

Each household in Kadi Part IV will also be provided Rs 1000 each to plant 100 saplings of cash crop.

On the other hand, some former Ministers from Nagaland are learnt to have procured trees which are used for laying rail tracks at cheap rates and transporting them to Peren.

The matter had reached the State Assembly some time back, and the same was conveyed to the Govt of Nagaland.

(This report was filed under the media fellowship of AMWJU).

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