5 Star Hotel dream :: Defining competition
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 29 2011 -

The more one looks at it the clearer it becomes and the clearer it becomes the comical and absurd aspect of it becomes all that more overwhelming. Dr Dhaballi is a man to be envied. It is not every Tomba and Chaoba who can dream of setting benchmarks as he has done, but the ultimate honour seems to have come from no one else but the State Government albeit by default.

The present dispensation has many firsts to its credit and among the more noteworthy ones include presenting the first Chief Minister of Manipur to complete a full term in office without any recess in between and this record seems all set to be broken as the man in the hot chair is comfortably placed to finish a second consecutive term in office while a third stint looks a distinct possibility.

Other firsts to its credit may include the record time it took to finish the BT flyover, the magnitude of the inconvenience forced upon the people courtesy the road digging up exercise for the much hyped Imphal Sewerage Project, the endless time it has taken for the Capitol Project to come to fruition, inauguration of a multi-purpose project without the power component known as Khuga multi-purpose project etc.

Obviously the Government cannot rest easy on these laurels and true to the spirit of bettering oneself with each passing day, it seems determined to add another feather in its cap by becoming the first State in the country and maybe the world to compete with an individual in the hospitality sector.

The sudden desire of the Government to build a 5 Star hotel is what dreams are made of and it is only those who dare to dream who climb their way from the obscurity of the average to the level to be counted amongst the few unique entities.

The SPF Government has already scored high on this and if the team from Delhi, representing different civil society organisations, saw an agenda or two in the move of the Government to upgrade Hotel Imphal to a 5 Star hotel after evicting the residents from Naga River Colony, it probably meant the desire to compete with an individual in the form of Dr Dhaballi.

The defining line in the stand of the Government to go ahead with its 5 Star dream appears to be, "If an individual can build a 3 Star Hotel, there is no way why the Government cannot go one step ahead and build a 5 Star Hotel."

This is where the absurdity of it all becomes prominent and laughable but the sad part is there is nothing to laugh about here, especially with the eviction notice hanging over the head of the residents of the said Colony.

Competition is the pass word in the post liberalisation period and while the very understanding of competition is positive, a line should be drawn on what the competition is all about. A Government competing with an individual will certainly not inspire anyone, for the absurdity of it all is too prominent to be brushed aside.

The global village today is talking about competition between Nations, between MNCs, between scholars and in almost every field, but the competition we are talking about may take on an absurd proportion if it is reduced to a race between an individual and a State Government.

Is it a case of being juvenile or lacking vision or is there something more to the plan to upgrade Hotel Imphal to a 5 Star hotel ? The demands of a 5 Star hotel is something huge and big and if the Government is under the impression that acquiring more land is enough, then it is time to take them to a juvenile home.

Load shedding is an alien term in a 5 Star hotel and so is the quality of drinking water supplied to the consumers by the PHED. We wonder how the Government plans to deal with these two basic but important points.

The pricing of a 5 Star hotel is such that it will be out of the reach of the majority of the people here and hence logic tells us that such a hotel will have to depend on the outsiders or domestic travellers/tourists to keep itself commercially viable.

We are sure the Government must have thought about this, but can we draw any inspiration from a Government which is struggling to even keep the curtains of Hotel Imphal clean and tidy ?

Is a 5 Star Hotel what the State needs on a priority basis ? Why not turn the attention towards ensuring that the Khuga multi-purpose project lives up to its name of a multi-purpose project ? Why not look for ways to ensure that all the district headquarters are connected with metalled roads ?

Or is this another case of the classic "Only Imphal," syndrome ? Demolition man is the name given to the Chief Minister, by the not so charitable observers and while this is not a case with us, this very term itself is reflective of the anathema that the SPF Government has developed towards people residing in strategic places.

Prioritising things or issues is perhaps the first step towards ensuring governance, but with the manner in which the Government has been placing its bet on the wrong horse all these years, we wonder whether this failure is the result of an intentional move or is just a reflection of the poverty of idea amongst the political leaders.

A 5 Star hotel by reducing a good number of people homeless is a fantastic idea !

The psychological as well as the mental trait that is on display is that of a Government drunk on power, unable to see beyond its immediate interest as well as a regime that is obsessed with contract works, for reasons that should be obvious to all.

The bottomline is, it would be so much more better if the Government learns to compete with itself rather than with an individual. It borders on the hilarious.