A driver anywhere would have taken hardly 3 hours to travel from Imphal to Jiribam national highway having a distance of 222 km.
However a cavalcade of trucks which left Imphal on August 22 morning to fetch consumer items, fuel and other badly needed commodities from Assam could reach Jiribam on Wednesday afternoon. This was disclosed by H. Kulamani, president of All Manipur Drivers and Motor Workers' Union during a press conference in Imphal on Wednesday.
He said that the highway is mountainous and fraught with potholes, partially breached road, weak and wobbly hanging bridges and culverts.
As a result of torrential rains there were small landslips here and there in the mountain areas.
Most of the trucks had gone to Jiribam to transport rice from the FCI godown there. However on reaching there the drivers learned that zonal executive director of FCI had issued an order saying that the drivers should lift the rice bags from the FCI godown at Dimapur in Nagaland.
It meant that the drivers have to return to Imphal and go along NH 2 having a distance of more than 250 km to reach Dimapur.
The president said that long time back the drivers had decided to ply along NH 37 by avoiding NH 2. He said that there had been numerous instances of beatings, killings of drivers and torching of trucks when the owners failed to pay up illegal taxes in time. He said that the union and state governments should not remain silent spectators when some FCI officials thus make a sport of the drivers at the cost of the people in Manipur.
