Will the company and state government listen to us this time?
EMN
Dimapur, May 25
After the tainted, dubious road construction company Maytas-Gayatri Joint Venture decamped amid allegations of corruption, falsity, and manipulation, the hopes of Phek district’s common citizens have now gone from celebrations to fear of the coming monsoon season. Now that the raw dug roads are open to the rains, the people are angry that plantation areas have been lost, while irrigation channels have been washed away, and even perennial water sources providing irrigation to farmers have been dumped with mud. The list of woes of the Chokri area, in Phek, goes on.
In a veiled threat, a local organization has cautioned that the silent suffering and patience with the disgraced company and the state government of Nagaland is gradually fading.
“Come this monsoon, the area people are yet going to undergo the harrowing torment of the manmade disaster brought by the construction of the Chakhabama-Zunhebhoto road. In what was expected with great hope and expectation that two lanning would provide better life for our people has rather turned into a night mare,” the Chokri Area Public Organization (CAPO) stated in a press release on Monday. The organization’s president, Vezhosa Chuzho, appended the statement.
The organization said that several plantation areas have been lost; irrigation channels have been washed away; perennial water sources providing irrigation to farmers have been dumped with mud; permanent terrace paddy fields have been washed away and much more.
“Ever since the earth cutting work started, haphazard and callousness were the hallmark of this road construction. The construction was carried out in several patches without completing it in a single stretch,” the organization stated.
“Wherever, earth cutting was carried out, natural water ways/outlets were ignored and filled with mud and worst of all no drainage were constructed for the water to drain thereby leading to mudslide and heavy landslide”.
With the recent shower, mudslides have begun in recurring spots and have blocked the entry of vehicles. “After repeated request made to the company by the village councils and area leaders, they cleared the spot. In the past, due to non clearance of the mudslides, goods laden vehicles have met accidents to the extent of causing grave injury to the drivers and helpers and loosing materials worth of lakhs,” the CAPO stated.
“There are occasions in the past where vehicles are stranded for days together and passengers have to face untold difficulties in the middle of the jungle without food and water. No wonder, due to bad condition of the road and getting stranded for days together prices of essential commodities also skyrocketed leaving the public high and dry”.
Recently, the statement said, in the garb of “soiling the road”, the company had dug the road at Chetheba town and even after many days “they have not filled the road with sand gravel. It is likely that the road in the town would become a river with the onset of monsoon”.
“We are told that a joint venture of Mytas and Gayatri with high reputation in road construction has been awarded the work. However, our interaction with the workers reveals that they are not employees of the real Company who have been awarded the work. In fact they are employees of some lesser companies who have been allotted the work,” the public organization stated.
“We wonder aloud, if such subletting was to be done do we not have competent local contractors? We definitely have and it is up to the state government to ensure that work is carried out according to the terms and agreement entered into”.
The CAPO reminded that the misery and pain the local people endured silently in the past years would recur no sooner with the onset of monsoon.
“All this while we have been cooperating with whatever company has come to our place to carry out the work. However, our goodwill and gesture are running out if the same manmade disaster is forced upon us again. Will the company and state government listen to us this time? If not, our people would be forced to resort to our own course of action,” the Chokri Area People’s Organization stated in caution.
