Due to the over two-month long blockade of two crucial highways that was finally lifted last week, people in the land-locked state of Manipur are still reeling under an acute shortage of essential commodities and life-saving drugs.
There have been two blockades in the state in the past two months. The All Naga Students? Association of Manipur (ANSAM), United Naga Council (UNC) and several other Naga organisations started a blockade of the two crucial national highways, NH-39 and NH-53, in the state on April 11, to oppose the holding of polls to the autonomous district councils in the five hill districts of the state. Then, since May 3, the Naga Students? Federation (NSF) blocked the portion of NH-39 which links Manipur to the rest of India through Nagaland. The NSF grouse is that the Manipur government did not allow its delegation to travel to Ukhrul to attend a meeting of Naga student bodies.
Not connected by railway, Manipur depends entirely on road transport for all its supplies, be it rice and other PDS items, petroleum products, life-saving medicines, cement or steel. The Food Corporation of India, which supplies the bulk of PDS items, takes the items to Dimapur in Nagaland by railways, and then sends up the materials by 115 km of the NH-39 through Nagaland into Manipur. On any given day, at least 100 trucks, oil and LPG tankers drive up from Dimapur to Imphal, with one open secret?several militant groups almost freely collect ?tax? from them all along the national highway, with the authorities looking the other way.
Manipur does produce some amount of rice. But that is simply not enough to meet the state?s growing needs. With a little over 2.33 lakh hectares of land under paddy cultivation, Manipur?s average annual rice production has been about 5.21 lakh mt, against an estimated requirement of 6.21 lakh mt. Last year, however, the situation had turned worse with the weather gods restricting the total production to just about 2.50 mt. The government this year permitted Manipur to import 50,000 tonne of rice from Myanmar.
Manipur is officially served by three national highways; (i) the 436-km NH-39 that takes off from NH 37 at Numaligarh near Kaziranga in Assam, and passes 115 km through Nagaland and 211 km through Manipur to end at Moreh on the Indo-Myanmar international border, (ii) the 320-km NH-53 that travels 100 km from Badarpur (Assam) to Jiribam on the border and then 220 km into the state, and (iii) the 700-km NH-150, that links Seling in Mizoram with Kohima in Nagaland after traversing about 523 km through Manipur.
But while most portions of NH-53 and NH-150 are nothing more than dirt tracks which could be best used for cross-country car rallies, traffic on the NH-39 too suffers a lot with numerous bandhs and blockades called by a number of organisations, some of which are armed underground groups, and some just existing on paper and through statements issued to newspapers.
A study carried out by the state government last year said Manipur suffered an accumulated loss of about Rs 1,320 crore due to bandhs and blockades between 2004-05 and 2006-07. The state department of economics and statistics has also worked out the impact of these bandhs and blockades on the people of Manipur. Per capita income of the state reduced by 6.10% in 2004-05, 11.79% in 2005-06 and 9.93% in 2006-07, the study said. But those are statistics.
On ground zero, the aam aadmi?s woes know no bounds. LPG cylinders, now slowly appearing, are still selling at double the actual price; petrol and diesel continue to be rationed, hospitals and nursing homes have postponed operations due to lack of diesel to run gen-sets; and every individual, rich or poor, has to either travel out by flight, or remain confined to the state.
Manipur has over the years learnt to live with bandhs and blockades. But even then, blame would entirely be put on the central government. Movement of goods and vehicular traffic across the country is a fundamental right, and it is for the Centre to ensure that this right is not curtailed,? says Amar Yumnam, who teaches economics at Manipur University in Imphal.
The state government, however, wholly blames the NSCN(IM) for the current highway blockade. ?The situation has arisen because Muivah insists on addressing meetings in different hill districts of Manipur, which we cannot allow in the interest of territorial integrity of our state,? says N Biren, spokesman of the Congress-led government, from Imphal. ?Manipur has been held to ransom by these bandhs and blockades, especially since the birth of the NSCN,? he says.