Much has been said and written of our roads but issues from illegal parking to giant potholes and unscientific speed breakers remain.
Much has been said, photographed, videoed, and written of our roads, besides a myriad of other problems of course, by numerous concerned citizens of the state, but it appears there is none designated to listen to, nor anyone authorised to address the ordinary citizen’s woes.
Illegal parking by scores of drivers, causing inconvenience to many, still continues in Kohima. It is for sure that Dimapur and many other towns too, face the same fate. Here, we have two categories of drivers - one, those who have learnt the use of steering wheel, accelerator, and brakes, minus the rules, and the other, who care two hoots for the law, while most Traffic Controllers silently bear their cross, pretending not to notice.
Driving through town or along the highways can be quite dicey, what with so many morons busy on their mobile phones. We could care less if they drove down a ravine, but the problem is, they are hazardous to others. One wonders why some drivers love generating sense-numbing noise. The concerned department occasionally, does politely remind the public about appropriate usage of lighting in vehicles, but some drivers do not have lights at home to read these rules, so they continue to blind us with their fancy lights. Some were never taught the concept of dippers. Wish we had laws to deal with mobile-phone wielders, noisy vehicles (2 & 4 wheelers), and those blinding us.
Then there is the seismic jarring of travellers. Road rumblers at the Dzüza and Sechü bridges, about 9 or 10 on each lane for each bridge, remind us of the fragility of our worn-out bodies and that of our vehicles. Even at slow speed, one actually gets to feel the gut being wrenched out of our bodies, and our vehicle body parts falling apart. Surely, ambulances too ply this road, with very sick patients. Dear NHIDCL, just one single, scientifically designed speed-breaker, with warning signs a couple of tens of meters before, should do the trick. The unreasonably numerous rumblers would more than compensate for the costs of the road signs. Then we have the super-technologists who designed and built our speed breakers angular to the roads. Kohima has so many, I stopped counting them. They definitely exist everywhere else, what with Kohima being the face of Nagaland (Sign in the Classic Island area). One seriously wonders if the concerned department knows of the illegality; speed breakers must be perpendicular to roads. A piece of advice to the concerned department/authority -please check the rule book, which states that unscientific speed breakers and those built by local residents or unauthorised persons are illegal. We may have thousands of them all over Nagaland. The rule book also says that speed breakers must typically have a breadth of 3.7 m and height of 10 cm. Most of ours are body (human and vehicle) jolters.
The craters (oooops sorry, giant potholes) on the roads of Kohima, definitely also in other parts of Nagaland, Kohima being the reflection, are a class apart. We have some really large, and we have some that are not so large, but deep enough for rocks to hit the undersides of small vehicles (one wonders how many vehicles lost their engine oil or coolant on our roads). And we are not talking of the random potholes - there are just thousands of them, small and large, all over Kohima. Sometimes I curse when, to avoid one pothole, I drive into two others. The Nagaland portion of AH 1 too is equally hazardous. Wish we had a department exclusively for potholes!
Safe lane driving requires proper signage. At places along the highway between Kohima and Chümoukedima, there are no signs to indicate that the other lane is to be taken. Many drivers thus, end up driving the wrong lanes. Surely some funds are available for lane-diversion notices. And in many places, where dividers have been broken for lane change, the small cross-over patches are as bad, if not worse than our deep potholes. NHIDCL, tone up!!!
The recent floods did create havoc across the districts this year. One of the casualties was the bridge over Dzümha River, connecting Jharnapani to Punglwa. On the return journey, we decided not to risk crossing the river again, and so took the old road -Tsüüma, Socünoma, Sirhima, Medziphema. Nostalgia overcame me at the thought of travelling that old country road again with my family, after so many years. To our horror, the road does not exist anymore. The former road is now many ponds and small lakes. On reaching the new bridge at Sirhima, from where the road to Medziphema is surprisingly good for our standards, I began wondering why the Department of Fisheries had not taken over. We could monopolise the market, doing away with the concerned fish and shrimp Syndicates, and export a whole lot out. That way, we would also not have to depend so much on handouts from the GoI, which heavily taxes (Income Tax) lakhs of its citizens for our upkeep.
We have patiently endured the storm for about 8 decades. Surely, we can tolerate another few years for the nearly 30 factions to unite. Hopefully, no new factions arrive on the scene. So, dear Opposition-less Government, while appreciating your unified efforts for unification, the real need of the hour is governance for the downtrodden.
G.T. Thong
Kohima