DIMAPUR, JULY : Dimapur requires a greater chunk of urban development and needs solutions yet the city ‘did not come out with constructive suggestions’ to demand for ‘Smart City’–in actuality, the commercial hub of Nagaland is the one deserving to be a ‘Smart City’ in every perspective.
This was implied by parliamentary secretary for Labour and Employment, Skill Development and Border Affairs, Mmhonlumo Kikon, on Monday.
The politician was addressing an environmental seminar at Unity Hall at the Naga Council in Dimapur on July 4. The event was organized by the Save Environment Network (SEN), a local nongovernmental group, and sponsored by the Nagaland Contractors and Suppliers’ Union.
In his address, the legislator said that for a ‘Smart City’ to be, ‘We should be smart citizens and prepare a strong argument to demand for smart city.’
Remarking that environment issues were a global concern, the legislator said ‘We are ecological citizens and fighting for immediate solution against environment problem.’ In the context of Dimapur, he said there was no concept of waste segregation and it was “not properly implemented.” Instead of civil societies ‘indulging in paper war’ through the local media, Kikon encouraged them to place their opinions before the state government “with proper documentation.”
Also, the politician claimed that ‘law and order is in place in the state’ but citizens’ participation was ‘integral for any development.’ The legislator was referring this to the compensation demand by land owners of the four-lane road project which continues to await materialization.
Kikon claimed that the landowners were seeking ‘undue compensation.’ This is hampering development from seeing objective, the said. He said that the central government was ‘ready to sanction funds for development’ but ‘not without concrete solutions.’
“We will be accountable for not contributing ourselves as a citizen for development of the state,” Kikon said. Social Audit on DMC
The parliament secretary also took opportunity from the presence of Dimapur Naga Students’ Union (DNSU) and Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC) leaders and officials attending the seminar. Mmhunlumo Kikon suggested to the DNSU to collaborate with Save Environment Network and plan a ‘citizen audit to check on the toll collection by DMC and the developmental work done so far by the department and work collectively for progress of Dimapur. ‘
Kikon also suggested to the SEN ‘to be honest while organizing seminars’ and not to organize seminars ‘just for the sake of managing as a nongovernmental organization.’ He called upon the organization to take serious note of river bed mining and ‘garbagedumping issues’ sincerely’ as advocates of the environment.
During the occasion, Kikon also called against the ‘chief guest culture’ in the state of Nagaland. He called upon the public not to seek donations from chief guests. They must also stop the practice of asking for donations.
The politician also took a jibe at IGP Robin Hibu, the nodal officer for the North East, Delhi, for ‘dragging the Nagaland government’ into the recent issue of ‘40 Naga youths employed at the King Catering Services at Rajkot without payment of salary for months.’ Kikon articulated that a learned man like Hibu should make his statement after thorough verification and not jump into conclusion and going public through social media.
Since he (Kikon) holds the Skill development department and was alerted, the legislator said it was confirmed that they (40 Naga youths) were employed through a middleman and not the state government.
Another speaker at the event was the dean of science of Patkai Christian College, Angel Sonare. Speaking on the theme of the seminar “role of civil society in environment protection,” the teacher cited civil society to be a third way of governing a society.
Supplementing to Mmhonlumo’s take on development in the society, the resource person remarked that as a society we cannot undo or go backward by stopping developmental activities in our society but we can encourage and negotiate with the government and help in reducing the effect of development of bio diversity.
Citing environment polices she said that those policies will remain irrelevant when civil societies do not participate and abide.
Advocating strongly for churches to be active with environment issues, she maintained Churches has a very crucial role to play and remarked that environment issues is not a problem of just the government, departments or nongovernmental organizations but everyone’ problem. Therefore we should start preaching at church pulpit to address this issue.
