Exclusion from fuel rationing
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: August 05 , 2013 -
It is a common knowledge how the people in this land- locked State of Manipur, which is dependent on everything brought in from outside, suffer every time the supply line remains cut off.
Whether induced by bandh/blockade or natural calamities, the predicament of the people, irrespective of their social status, is that they have to reel under the impact of shortage of essential commodities including fuel for days, weeks and sometime, months, when the movement of vehicles along the National Highways passing through the State gets affected.
This is also the precise reason why most social organisations target the National Highways when they have to exert pressure on the Government to press their demand.
They know that considering the importance of the two National Highways passing through the State and the dependence of the people on them for everything, the Government could be easily arm-twisted to fall in line to their demand.
With the Imphal-Jiribam stretch of the National Highway 37 lying in a deplorable condition for the last many years, currently the people of Manipur are experiencing yet another round of fuel crisis following the suspension of movement of oil tankers due to a massive landslide which occurred along the National Highway 2 (Imphal-Dimapur Road) at Phesema in Nagaland since the night of July 8 last.
The impact of the present oil crisis, which has caught everyone by surprise quite unexpectedly, is such that the announcement of hike in the prices of petrol and diesel 70 and 50 paisa respectively since the intervening night of July 31 and August 1 following depreciation of the rupee and hardening of crude prices in the International market could hardly create a ripple among the people, whose first priority is to rush and be in the queue in front of the nearest oil pumps, where fuel rationing would be done by the Department concerned of the State Government for the convenience of the public.
And so, it’s no wonder when the newspaper offices are flooded with calls to find out the oil pumps where fuel rationing would be done for the general public as well as for the reserved groups including media.
However, one pertinent point that needs to be understood when we speak of fuel rationing to media is that ensuring smooth functioning of the 'fourth estate of the democracy’ does not depend on the working journalists like editors, sub-editors and reporters alone; there are a whole lot of others behind the scene like DTP operators, plate makers, machine men, circulation staff, etc, without whose contribution it is impossible even to think of bringing out a publication.
But they have been clubbed together as non-working journalists and excluded from the purview of fuel rationing? This is not fair at all.
The Department concerned should pay attention to this anomaly, or better still All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union (AMWJU) must take up the issue with the seriousness it deserves.
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