Khuga Dam : Victim of a lethal cocktail - Armour of scepticism
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 22, 2011 -

A file pic of the then uncompleted Khuga Dam - Pix TSE

Trust the State Government to make a hash out of anything that is placed under their custody and it is best for everyone to be protected by the armour of scepticism or else the disappointment can be devastating, it may even kill !

As some people say, 'The truth is so precious it should be surrounded by a body guard of lies," here in Manipur we may improvise this and say, "The sensibility and intellect of the people are so precious that they should be secured by a bodyguard of scepticism."

Khuga Multi-Purpose Project may as well be rechristened, "Khuga Multi-Purpose Money Spinning Project." It is as simple as this. The Project has all the characteristics of corruption written over it, from the non-existent power component, the extremely long time it has taken, the apology of an embankment built for the canal, the contentious cry raised by some people that they have not been paid their compensation in full, the caving in of the canal banks with such clinical regularity, so much so that today it stands as a vast ocean of still water reflecting the inefficiency, corruption and short sightedness of the Government.

Inefficiency and corruption make for a lethal cocktail and the victim this time is Khuga Multi-Purpose Project. The battered soul of Th Manorama must be shedding copious tears for it was her brutal death at the hands of Assam Rifles personnel in 2004 that gave a fresh breathe of life to this project.

After the bullet riddled and battered body of Th Manorama was discovered, Manipur erupted on a scale never seen before.

The nude protest in front of Kangla, the days of protest that practically paralysed Imphal, the brutality of the police force that stood exposed for all to see in the manner in which they rained blows, kicks and punches, apart from the lathis in their hands, when students of Manipur University gathered at the gate of Raj Bhawan to register their protest mirrored the anger of the people.

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act was demonised to an extent it had never seen before and the events here constrained Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, then only two years in office, to fly down to Imphal to get a first hand account of the situation in Manipur.

Apart from constituting the Jeevan Reddy Commission to study the provisions of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Prime Minister delivered a master stroke by announcing that the Congress led UPA Government would revive all the projects given up for dead and Khuga Multi-Purpose Project was one of them.

Dr Singh Did not announce any economic package nor did he indulge in any real politicks, but demonstrated the economist and the humane side in him by announcing the revival of the abandoned projects as well as by constituting the Jeevan Reddy Commission. This was in the winter of 2004 and like the Prime Minister and the UPA Government, Mr Ibobi too had just completed two years in office as the Chief Minister and not surprisingly the similarity between the two ended here. v It is seven years down the line since the revival of Khuga Project was announced and true to the reputation of all works taken up by the State Government, there is nothing to suggest that a multi-purpose project has come to life in a village situated about 10 kms from Churachandpur district headquarters. Since its inception, the story of Khuga dam will read like one of those tragi-comedy, scripted, printed and published by successive State Governments.

It is a multi-purpose project, but the story of this project has been written in such a way that today it does not even stand up to the task of delivering a single task, forget about multi- tasking.

The Khuga Multi-Purpose Project was given shape and life with the intended purpose of generating about 1.5 mega watts of hydro-electric power, provide irrigation facilities to the nearby agricultural fields measuring nearly 10,000 hectares of land besides providing thousands of gallons of potable water.

With corruption blending perfectly with inefficiency, it did not come as a surprise to anyone when Khuga Project was inaugurated without the power component on November 11, 2010, by none other than Madam Sonia Gandhi. Khuga Dam was condemned to the status of a multi-purpose project without the ability to generate power. This is not all as the remaining chapters of the tragi-comedy started unfolding for all to see and hear.

The canals which have come up to provide irrigation facilities to the nearby agricultural fields lived up to its reputation of being a mission taken up by the State Government with its embankment breaching and caving in with clinical regularity and efficiency. As things turned out, the embankment was put up by scooping out the earth from the side of the canal !

A novel engineering feat, we should say. The fall out is obvious and it meant that quite a large number of people had to spend sleepless nights counting the wads of notes earned from the embankment work. The Khuga Dam JAC has already brought the matter to the notice of Delhi and demanded a thorough investigation.

This is perfectly in line with what a cheated people would do, but to expect any positive action from Delhi would be akin to exposing ourselves to the perils of wild expectations.

Manipur is not Delhi or Maharastra or West Bengal. Get this fact registered in your mind, is the advice we would give to the JAC. It would be interesting to see how Madam Sonia Gandhi would react if she were told that the SPF Government here pulled a fast on her and lured her into inaugurating a Multi-Purpose Project which is not in a position to discharge even a single task.