Unlicensed street vendors pick an unfair fight
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 04 2011 -

NO MATTER how you strain to raise your imagination to rail against CM O Ibobi's government there is one thing you cannot deny. He has successfully conducted a face lift of the 'Ima Keithel'. He has ushered in a semblance of order in the every day working of Khwairamband Keithel.

Human beings are difficult to please, vendors are, as some people would have read them, noisome and foul, and unlicensed vendors, particularly the pavement squatting type, are always on the razor's edge. To put it in a nutshell they incessantly create major headaches to one and all.

To understand their issues let us examine what are they doing at present. They are occupying pavements to sell their wares. When they are presented with alternatives they snarl back saying they prefer to cram Imphal's pavements. We can only gnash our teeth and say, anywhere else but not on the pavements.

The question is who suffers? The obvious answer is Meetei intelligence suffers. As a community we are continuously being battered by a terrible lack of common sense.

Why?

Because we thrive on ignorance and habitually tread on foul matter. One may be compelled to ask, is there a way out? Yes there is, but at the wrong end of a long and sturdy legal stick.

Who does not like a thriving market on our door steps, every body does. Why bother to ask. But then who prefers a market where you have to always move sideways, just to get to the next stall.

Nobody does. At best it is not a dainty move.

Here, Chief Minister O Ibobi strikes a point. He said no amount of newly constructed Keithels can placate our vendors.

In fact he had queried sarcastically whether we are to tear down our historical landmarks just to satiate the incurable greed of our street vendors.

O Ibobi has been pilloried and railed against more than enough, but we have to agree he has spoken out loud our mind.

Enough is enough. Our vendors have to learn they must be part of a city in a constructive sense but not in a cankerous role.

Imphal is a city, but let us not make it a fish market.

After all we don't want vendors to make the city stink with wrong and unwarranted moves.