Nagaland returns home to reality

Staff Reporter DIMAPUR, APRIL 25 After the festivities of winter holidays, and the Lok Sabha elections, Nagaland has ‘returned home’ – the realities of deplorable roads conditions, dust storms, and heaps of garbage along every stretch of road. The state has also returned to the insufferable reality of power outages just when citizens needed the most.At the time of writing this news report, piles of garbage could be seen sprayed across every block of Circular Road, Duncan, PWD to Signal. The Dimapur Municipal Council cleaners can only do so much with irregular clean-ups; the absence of garbage collection bins in places where Dimapur citizens need the most remains a distant wish. To complete the beauty of it all, the town’s main roads are virtually in harmony with clouds of dust while piles of garbage look on loving from the sides of the road. On the road, citizens and vehicles grind and bump along viciously. To make matters worse, temperatures are literally increasing as citizens are beginning to question the return of Nagaland’s infamous power outages even as summer begins. Power outages have grown longer while the actual supply lasts at most one hour before it goes off again. For 32-year old Aboto Assumi, the power outages are emptying his pockets. He’ll have to pay at least Rs. 9, 000 to buy a new stabilizer for his water pump. Since the power outages began in the city during early April, the machine had begun showing signs of strain. About 3 days ago, the power went out, and when it returned, the water pump left for its mechanical abode. In the sweltering heat of Dimapur, three families that live in his building have been fetching water from neighbors. “Until the motor stabilizer is bought there won’t be any water. What can we do when power is like this? Even if the pump was working, the power that comes is hardly sufficient. Buy the time the electricity goes, the level of water it has pumped is barely sufficient,” the young father of two told this reporter in exasperation. He is not alone. Just a block away from where he lives, PWD colony, is a neighbor whose television blew out its AC in the middle of a soccer match several days ago when Dimapur’s power supply went out abruptly. “Ki kuribo ho,” the neighbor, a church workers who did not wish to be named, signed resignedly. Power outages and summer heat have always had an easy relationship with garbage. The recent lack of municipal services – and accountability from an apathetic public – may have injected an even tangier flavor to the whole smelly affair. From Duncan Basti to Khermahal, Dohbinullah to Marwari Patti, Hong Kong to Signal Basti and Thahekhu, Dimapur is fast-turning into a Wild West. For a town that takes pride in being called a ‘commercial center’, the business side of public amenities and services seem to be taking a vacation. “The DMC people don’t come cleaning this side. They come sometime but not always,” says Abdullah, a ‘paan’ shopkeeper who mans a tiny booth just a block away from the Army Supply canteen. He points to a particularly large stretch of garbage cuddling a wall just a few meters away from his shop. Just a few meters drive up, is another large spread of at least a weeks-old pile of garbage. The stench is unworldly. Interestingly, Nagas seem to find any space a convenient place to discard the dregs of daily city life. For instance, the road along Circular Road toward Duncan Basti is flanked by patches of garbage spread over several days, sometimes weeks. Even in front of the PWD office, there is a pile of garbage citizens have thrown because there are no designated garbage collection bins nearby. The more socially-responsible citizens hire auto rickshaws or take private vehicles all the way to the main “dustbin” located near Forest colony. The road from Nepali Basti Junction all the way to junction into ADC Court is a good illustration of how the lack of civic sense among Dimapur’s citizens exists in harmony with the apathy of amenities and municipal services.