The people at Haoreibi in Manipur’s Thoubal district transplanted paddy plants along the busy Tanki road on Saturday as protest against the bad condition of the road.
One villager said that some truckloads of earth had been dumped by the side, making the road more slippery, dangerous and inconvenient for the villagers.
Since nothing had been done on the dumped earth, the people were growing paddy to draw the attention of the government, the villagers said. They pointed out that in the name of repairing the road some loose earth was dumped and no follow-up action had been taken during these days of heavy downpours.
The villagers alleged that the road along a river bank had not been repaired for more than eight years and there was high risk since the weak road along the river may breach any time. They also alleged that the government had not paid any compensation for the private land encroached upon during the road repairing works.
After the recent resignation of Congress MLA Abdul Nasir, the people of the Lilong constituency, which is about 20 km away from capital Imphal, have no representative to whom they could approach for this basic need. Mr. Nasir is one of the six MLAs who had resigned from the membership of the State Assembly. Though five of them, including Okram Henry, a nephew of CLP leader Okram Ibobi, had joined the ruling BJP, Mr. Nasir says that he would hold meetings with his voters before taking the next step.
