Connectivity and its narratives vis a vis Manipur
- Part 2 -

Chitra Ahanthem *

The 'boarder' sign one sees on leaving Moreh.

As I take the road back to Imphal, I pass the Tulihal airport, which has come to mean a point of connecting to the outside world for many. At one stage, the National Highway connecting Imphal to Dimapur in Nagaland and then linking it further to Guwahati in Assam was considered a safe bet for road travel despite the long hours it took to cut across the long winding stretches but political fall outs in the state have time and again choked up the Highway for months on end.

With daily flights out of Imphal to Guwahati, not many people want to take to the Highway and my own memories of traveling to and from Imphal till Chandigarh where I was studying then, brings home how much has indeed changed. Then, going to Chandigarh meant a day long bus trip till Guwahati, a night halt there and then taking the train till Delhi from where I would board a bus till my destination point. This meant a minimum of 4 days for travel, which could extend depending on the train's speed.

Manipur's connectivity with the rest of the country remains the Tulihal airport, which has now been accorded the status of an International airport for some time now though no international flights have been in operation except for a round trip chartered flight between Mandalay-Imphal-Mandalay. Railway lines are being laid down by tunneling through the state's hilly terrain and looks set to take its time by the time it connects Manipur to the rest of the country.

In October 2006, the Indian government proposed building a railway-line from Jiribam to Imphal and Moreh. According to an assessment of Rites Limited, the construction of the rail-link between Jiribam-Imphal-Moreh is estimated at Rs 2,941.08 crore. So far, the Indian Railways has begun work on the Jiribam- Imphal line, which was expected to be complete by 2016 but the deadline has been extended beyond 2020.

Geography is what binds Mandalay in Myanmar to Moreh in Manipur. To a lay person, Moreh is another sleepy little town with shops selling cheap electronic items, blankets, plastic ware, clothes, detergent powder and so on. The romance of Moreh lies in the town being the last border town with a gate symbolizing the border between Myanmar and India. For many years, the gate was nothing but a corridor flanked by police and customs personnel on the Indian side and Myanmar security forces on the other side. This time, the gate had been made more fancy and has Assam Riffles personnel and a sniffer dog doing the security check drill.

The presence of the Assam Riffles is something you cannot escape as you travel the length of the 110 km narrow winding roads that forks its way between Imphal and Moreh. There are four check posts where every vehicle going to or coming back from Moreh are checked by Assam Riffles personnel.

These checks cannot be wished away given that illegal trade of redwood, teak, gemstones, drugs and arms have been in operation with many reported cases even as it is anyone's guess over how many cases of illegal trade and what amount goes unreported. The biggest reported haul took place on February 24, 2013, when a team of Thoubal police commandos intercepted a consignment of drugs worth Rs 25 crores from a convoy of vehicles led by Lt Col Ajay Chowdhury, the then Army PRO.

The checks along the Imphal-Moreh road is a necessary evil and one cannot but help wish for a waiting area as passengers are asked to produce verification papers and the vehicles thoroughly searched. On earlier occasions, an Assam Riffles check post along the road made it mandatory for all passengers to disembark from their vehicles before the check post and then walk beyond it for about 20 metres or so.

This time, I saw vehicles being herded to a side of the road and the search, taking place there. Another common sight on the road is that of overloaded vehicles piled high with Moreh products. With the border town being a shopping destination for families or small time traders looking at whole sale rates, the passenger vehicles have a novel way of pricing their fares. Those traveling by a Maruti van from Imphal to Moreh would have to fork out Rs 400 while the return fare is increased to Rs 500 per person. Travel in a bigger vehicle would mean an increase in fare but it is always the return fare that is entails more.

I asked my van driver Narjit why the same distance had different fare rates and he had this to say, "on return trips, people tend to carry back goods." The van I am traveling in, seats three persons in the back while the front seat is meant for two people but I have paid for two persons and kept the seat to myself.

My co-passengers make for a good story in itself: two of them are siblings and are headed to Moreh to shop for furniture while the third is a Moreh resident who had gone to Imphal to get a health check up done.

The siblings give me a crash course on cheap furniture rates while the gentleman laments over the lack of quality education and health care in the town. Asked if things will change for the people of Moreh once the proposed Highway between India and Mandalay gets extended till Thailand, making the town a gateway to the South Asian region, he thinks it through for sometime before responding with a cautious note: "All we have been hearing is the talk of this will come and that will come but on the ground, not much has changed."

His cynicism is well placed considering that the existing Highway connection has only extended a mere 150 kms into Myanmar. For visitors like me, the visible changes in Moreh are the range of new products from across the border and the bustle in the market area and that mobile network connectivity has broadened over time.

Five years ago, there was a pothole covering in the bye-lanes leading to the border market where only people with BSNL connections could try and get connectivity. Later, other mobile services joined the fray and I found out this time that my mobile service provider was keeping me connected as well!

Through the course of my travel and the interactions, what came to the fore when the word 'connectivity' was mentioned was the immediate co-relation to better roads and education, followed by easy communication services.

Yes, some things have changed but they have been painfully slow which is another reason why so many young people decide to leave. Those who opt to remain, continue to battle it out with erratic mobile and internet networks that may or may not keep you in touch!

Concluded..

* Footnote: The Marathi version of this story has been carried by the Lokmat magazine earlier.