During the past 20 years, Nagaland has been deprived of having several institutions for development of human resources and which expose the unpreparedness and ineptness of state authorities and ignorance of the public.
Why the state was deprived of the institution was because of vested interests inimical to the state and its people. These institutions would have made a huge contribution towards the progress of the state. Shifting of SBI: The State Bank of India (SBI), with 52 branches in Nagaland is the only Lead Bank and also the bank of other banks.
On the strength of being the Lead Bank handling all government funds and transactions, the Local Regional Office was opened in Dimapur was opened in 1986 and subsequently upgraded by SBI authorities to Zonal Office headed by a Deputy General Manager. However, the Jorhat (Assam) lobby prevailed and the DGM at Jorhat South took over Dimapur SBI Module. Gradually, in order to cement the downgrading of Dimapur, a new module was created, called Jorhat South on February 1,2013.
Thus Nagaland was clubbed with the districts of Jorhat, Nagaon, Karbi Anglong and Golaghat. The SBI office Nagaland, in Dimapur has been downgraded to that of a big branch office under an Assistant General Manager (AGM). Officials of SBI Nagaland interact with the highest echelons in the state political and administrative set up; whereas officials of the four SBI districts in Assam interact only with district-level officials. SBI officers from Dimapur office travel for three hours by road to Jorhat for official works and susceptible to frequent bandhs.
The shifting of SBI Zonal office/ Regional office to Jorhat from Dimapur follows the same modus operandi that the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) seeks to deprive Dimapur from being upgraded to a Divisional Office. Dimapur railway station has been transferred from Lumding (69 Kms away) to Tinsukia (265 Kms) away. Prior to it, trial of cases pertaining to offences under Dimapur, had been transferred from the magistrate’s court in Dimapur to the magistrate court in Tinsukia. In addition, some lawyers in Tinsukia do not allow counterparts in Dimapur to appear in the Tinsukia court.
Nagaland is yet to have a medical college and the fault lies with the state government. The state’s plan was to have a medical college in Dimapur at the erstwhile referral hospital (now proposed at Kohima).
The state also missed having its agriculture university at Medziphema for which an area of around 3000 acres were earmarked. Due to threats on some faculty member at the SASRD during the mid-90s, the door for the proposal for establishing the Agriculture university was closed and it ultimately went to Manipur.
During 1991-92 when ONGC was exploring crude oil and natural gas in Nagaland, the ONGC office was established in Dimapur which provided employment opportunities to scores of local youths and technicians.
One day the office closed because some miscreant threatened the director, a retired army officer for money etc. Next the ONGC office was shifted to Jorhat and with that the scores of Naga youths who were on contract employment were not given extension.
MPs from Nagaland should have raised these issues in parliament to put the ball at the Centre’s court and show as much interest for such matters as the fixation for the political issue.
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