The power situation in Nagaland refuses to improve. It may be that we will have to pray and wait for enough rains in the next few weeks to see an improvement or perhaps a miracle from God. And also despite making their voice heard through different forum including a peaceful rally on May 30 at City Tower, Dimapur, it is quite baffling that the Power Minister has failed to say at least something on the crisis going on. Although the Power Department came out with a detail technical explanation about the power situation in Nagaland at present and the difficulty faced by the Department, nevertheless the Power Minister could have at least come out with even one or two sentence sympathizing with the people’s suffering. This kind of attitude is obviously not in tune with the much publicized ‘people’s government’ tag that the present NPF government is so fond of expressing. The public can only assume that perhaps there is no positive measure or agenda on the part of the government to improve the power situation in the State and probably we will have to live with the reality of being starved of lights and electricity.
While the present crisis is nothing new for all of us (as we are used to the system of corruption and poor delivery of services), yet at the same time, the public should not remain a mute spectator anymore. If we want to see an improvement, it is also time for the public to raise some pertinent question to our politicians and the political parties and what they have to say on the chronic power deficiency faced by the State. It is one thing to make tall promises about development. But the voting public should also help and define what development ought to entail. Whether it is roads, electricity, health care or employment, all this must be made into an issue for the forthcoming assembly elections. After all, the State’s power situation or the condition of roads is in such a deplorable state and election time is an opportunity to raise such issues. It is for this reason that the so called development mantra of political parties must not be allowed to remain gauged in generalization and undefined but the voting public must insist on substantiating the slogan of development so as to also ensure accountability of the process and time bound results.
Besides the several known reasons for the sorry state of affairs with regard to the chronic power crisis, the other point is Nagaland does not have its own Thermal Power Plant (TPP) and so it is made to depend entirely on monsoons for its electricity generation. The question therefore is why a TPP is not yet a reality even after decades of Statehood. What does the Congress, NPF or all those who have ruled the State have to say about this? Before the last Assembly Election in early 2008, the Morung Express in one of its editorial had stated that “people deserve more than just development slogans”. We had at that time suggested to the political parties in the State, who were finalizing their respective poll manifestos, and also to the Naga public, who would vote, that a specific assurance for making a Thermal Power Plant fully functional as soon as possible should be demanded from the poll campaign. The editorial mentioned that “people should vote on issues and there is a strong case for people to vote for lights”. However nothing happened. Political parties including the Opposition Congress and the ruling NPF ignored the plea and as for the people, we all remained silent and instead voted for high sounding development slogans and money power. Now we are suffering. When are we going to learn? This time perhaps we must demand specific assurance from those we will elect. No lights no vote. It’s as simple as that.
