It appears there is a dichotomy with the state government regarding its approach to economic development especially with regard to other less developed districts. This may be seen with regard to the lukewarm response on pushing the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to declare the Foothill Road as a National Highway. The state government is very keen on exploring and subsequently exploiting oil and natural gas across various districts but somehow cannot push for construction of a viable and dependable road link. The foothill road project is not only a vital project but also going to become the main arterial links among several districts. However, the most important part that the road is to play will be transportation of oil, gas and minerals. Once completed, it will also help each and unhindered movement of people and goods from one part of Nagaland to another without being held ransom to bandhs or blockades imposed by spate of organisations in Assam. This newspaper had been highlighting the importance of the foothill road decades back and which was revived by the tribes comprising of the Foot Hill Road Coordination Committee (FHRCC) to revive the construction of around 256 kilometer project that was abandoned by the North Eastern Council(NEC) in 1974. The revived foothill road is a dream project because it seeks to cut short the travel time and distance from Dimapur \u2013the trade and commerce centre of Nagaland-with Mokokchung, Longleng, Tuensang, Wokha, Zunheboto and Kiphire. The foothill road project is undoubtedly the most important and vital link that connects so many districts. After oil and natural gas are explored and extracted, these would have to be transported to different units in the oil and gas bearing blocks( now changed to Zones). Transporting the fractionalised resources would entail carriage of tons of oil and other by products by road and rail networks. In this regard, the other proposal that has been put on the backburner is the over four decades-old proposed Dimapur-Tizit railway line. This had been approved since several decades ago but the state government has been sleeping and eventually, the NFR has literally abandoned the project citing various excuses. If both the road and rail networks are completed, they will serve not only for transportation of various products including tea, coffee, horticulture and bamboo products but also serve as the \u2018rivers\u2019 of progress by linking Dimapur, the commercial centre with the other districts such as Wokha, Mokokchung, Mon, Longleng, and Tuensang thereon, to other nearby districts. The neighbouring state of Manipur has already undertaken a series of measures to vastly improve its connectivity despite suffering geographical challenges. The Manipur government has ensured that the Silchar-Jiribam-Imphal route takes off and also the proposed railway line along the same area to Imphal. In the case with Nagaland, construction of the foothill road is not a big hurdle, since the route traverses through low lying areas unlike Dhansiri-Zubza-Kohima line. Since the Centre sanctioned the Dimapur-Tizit railway line, there is also no reason why the much needed foothill road traversing along the same area cannot also be considered for approval of sanction. As stated earlier, the ball is in the court of the government of Nagaland and mere demand may not lead to results. What is required is for the state government to adopt a realistic approach to development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It appears there is a dichotomy with the state government regarding its approach to economic development especially with regard to other less developed districts. This may be seen with regard to the lukewarm response on pushing the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to declare the Foothill Road as a National Highway. The state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}