Pushing NH-37 to the back burner : Curse of being 2nd lifeline
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 17 2018 -

The second lifeline of the State and for those who live in a landlocked State, the importance of the term, ‘lifeline’ can be understood only through the prism of National Highways or the roads that connect the landlocked place with the outside world.

So it is that the Imphal-Dimapur highway and the Imphal-Jiribam highway are understood as the lifelines of Manipur, which is home to about 28 lakh people.

It is on this line that the Imphal-Jiribam line is widely referred to as the second lifeline of the State but down the years the term ‘second lifeline’ seems to have come to mean that it is second best to the first.

This is the reason why the Imphal-Jiribam line comes to the attention of the Government and the people only when there is something unwanted on the Imphal-Dimapur line and Manipur understands this unwanted situation as a bandh or a blockade on the said highway stretch.

As reported in The Sangai Express the highway has improved remarkably after the National Highway Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) took over from the BRO the task of constructing and looking after the highway some time back, but is this enough reason for the State Government to completely shut its eyes to this highway stretch ?

True, Works Minister Th Biswajit along with some officials did inspect the highway some time back, but surely the State Government can do more and ring out the message that it is keeping a sharp look over the progress or non-progress of the highway work.

The point that is sought to be made here is, the Imphal-Jiribam highway or NH-37 should not come to the notice of the Government only when there is a bandh or a blockade on the Imphal-Dimapur Highway.

And as the past has shown, blockades or more specifically an economic blockade can be imposed for days and Manipur has already experienced this.

Go back to 2005 and one will surely remember the 52 days economic blockade imposed by the All Naga Students’ Association, Manipur.

It was during this period that the demand to develop Imphal-Jiribam Highway was raised vociferously.

And it was along this line that the then Governor of Manipur, Dr SS Sidhu inspected the state of the highway by road.

It is a shame that though the Governor took it upon himself to go by road and get a first hand account of the state of the highway, none of the political netas of that time deemed it fit to emulate the Governor.

None from the Council of Ministers back then thought it prudent to follow the path of the Governor and get a first hand account of the highway.

The same mindset seems to continue to this day too, with no one, other than the Works Minister having inspected the highway some time back.

Indifferent and inefficient can be a lethal cocktail and this is what has been fed to NH-37 down the decades.

The BJP led Government can do something different and it would be in the fitness of things for the Chief Minister to personally inspect the state of the highway along with his Council of Ministers, now that the condition of the highway has improved and this will be in line with the plans to develop the highway to a four lane one in a few years time.