Is building our two highways that difficult ?

Tarun Nongthombam *

We all keep on hearing every now and then, the story on deplorable condition of our two main National Highways. Manipur Government has not been able to come up with a convincing answer and same is true with the executing government agency like Border Roads Organization (B.R.O), which is responsible for looking after these Highways. We in Manipur, all want to know what ills these two highways, the highways which are so important to our state. Is building and maintaining highways that difficult? To answer this question let us explore highway and infrastructure construction sector in the country.

Exibit-1: Our National Highway-53 in deplorable condition.
Photo source: The Sangai Express.

Couple of decades back, construction and operation of Roads and Highways was solely under the domain of Ministry of Surface Transport at the central level and agencies like PWD and Municipalities in state and city level. With the opening of market and after the formation of National Highway Authority of India (N.H.A.I), many private players are investing in these highway construction and operation sector. Private firms invest their money and they collect toll for the next 20 to 30 years to get their money back and the profit. We in Manipur have to still stick with the old method of government investment as the second option will not be viable with little traffic we have on our National Highways.

Seeing the tardy economic growth in Manipur, we are not going to have large increase in inter state traffic. We will not need those wide fancy roads which we see in other parts of the country for many years to come; what we need is to properly maintain NH-39 and may be some widening in NH-53. We only have to maintain what we have! So what the entire hullabaloo is about?

To understand better, let us see what the requirements of any infrastructure project are. Any infrastructure project starts with planning and design. It is like producing a guide map on which you will be working and it also gives the estimated cost of the project. If I do a minimum rough estimate on the design of our two highways, we would require a team of three people for each Highway which would include a Highway Engineer, a Bridge Engineer and a Computer Aided Design (CAD) technician to produce design drawings for our National Highways. Six months time should be enough to produce workable design for the two Highways. With so many design firms all over India getting a design done should not be that difficult!

Next comes getting funding. As highway construction is already in progress by agencies like B.R.O, I believe that the fund is there. Surface Transport Ministry has a fix budget and state administrators should convince their central counterpart that we need more funding as compared to other parts of the country in infrastructure development. If our administrators don't do their work, the cake which rightly belongs to us will be taken away by others.

There is a flip side to this; you would find people who have vested interest in keeping the highway in this condition as with every monsoon they get maintenance money. Any new construction or new widening which is black top should last roughly 20 years with minor maintenance. I have come across state roads in Senapati district notorious for consuming money but with no improvement seen in years! This is not only with the infrastructure industry. My interaction with NGOs working in AIDS control left me with bad taste. Do you know the problem most of the funding agencies, both central and international, have with Manipur's NGOs? Money going in state and getting vanished into thin air with no accounting. Check the number of NGOs black listed in the state in every sector, you might be able to find a clearer picture.

B.R.O. as an organization is responsible to their bosses in Delhi; they have little accountability to our Chief Minister and to the people of the state. It is an organization known for their maintenance work and I have little faith on them in completing big infrastructure project in time. Let me narrate a story on B.R.O working, which I have encountered. I was coming from outside the state and a large section of the Highway got breached and entire traffic was hold up for a day. People were getting restless as they can't spend day and night on roads with babies crying. Instead of working in shifts to get the problem fixed,"lunch time! They all went for lunch". Our bus driver got so desperate that he nearly took the shovel and started working himself. Let B.R.O stay with what they are good at, that is maintenance of roads, but large construction which is time bound should be given to firms which can deliver.

Whether we live in hills or valley, we all want infrastructure development of the state; be it roads or public buildings, public health or sanitation, power or telecom. People in the hills want two things; one is proper road connectivity with Imphal or the nearby town and access to basic medical facilities. Do you know what infrastructure development people in valley want? In a workshop with large number of student participation in Manipur University, access to proper drinking water supply was voted as the first priority. In my short stint of working with Bishnupur district administration, I came across D.C. and medical officers complaining about large influx of sick people from nearby areas in Tamenglong to Bishnupur's district hospital. Bishnupur has a limited medical budget so as Tamenglong, their resentment is reasonable but you have to look after your own people from other districts and that was the moral dilemma Bishnupur administration and medical staffs faced.

Exhibit-2: A part of Capitol Complex - Our New Assembly Building
Photo Source: The Sangai Express..

But what is the way forward? There is a beautiful lesson to be learned from the recent Capitol infrastructure project in the state. If you see Manipur government employee involved with the project, you would find them working like private firms employee in metros. At 7 am in the morning they were off to the office and 8 pm at night they were in their houses. Do you know the reason why they worked so hard? It was because of Chief Minister direct supervision and frequent site visits he made. Everything starts flowing with ease when headman takes the control! This is how all the critical infrastructure project should be executed and that includes our two highways.

Final and most fundamental requirement of any infrastructure project is selection of builders and contractor who can do good job and complete work in time. Manipur will not be attractive to big contractors like L&T as the law and order situation would scare them away. Outside firms which have worked in Manipur should be encouraged to work here as it is not only man and machine; but you require firms having the knowledge and skill of wading through Manipur's dirty water filled with armed thugs and community politics. At the same time, as a capacity building measure, we need to make these contractors employ local people so that our people are trained. Lack of skilled staff is detrimental to the growth of the state. There is a famous joke on Kashmiris on their lack of skill and it goes "Kashmiris know nothing except growing apples".

Exhibit-3: On the left is the bituminous black top road section and on the right is concrete road section getting constructed on NH-31 at Barpeta in Assam..

Every state in the union is undergoing extensive road building exercise except in Manipur. As far as my understanding goes even states like Mizoram and Arunachal have started extensive program. Exhibit- 3 shows what is happening in Assam right at this moment.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. I would go for setting up of state corps of engineers in line with US Army corps of engineers which has the following mission, "Provide vital public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen our Nation's security, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters".

Its Vision further reads, "A GREAT engineering force of highly disciplined people working with our partners through disciplined thought and action to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions to the Nation's engineering challenges".

Exhibit-4: US Army Engineers helping Iraqi Army engineers in rebuilding a bridge to reconnect Taji in Iraq to a major highway. The bridge was damaged by terrorists using a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device.
Photo Source- Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS).

Manipur State Engineering Corps should be headed by an officer just below the rank of State Police D.G.P. and he should be accountable directly to the Chief Minister. Only organization like corps of engineers can work in those remote areas where P.W.D is dysfunctional, where there is extortion with armed groups running a parallel government. But this requires political will and one has to have courage to take the bull by the horns. Manipur need a minimum of 20 years of rapid infrastructure building to catch up with the other developed states of the union, we need to start quick and fast.

I would end by what Infosys founder Narayana Murthy said;
"It requires hard work and sacrifice of one generation to lift a nation".