The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) has expressed concern over the controversy that has emerged between the various stakeholders of the Foothills Road Project. In a press release issued on March 2, it called upon the need for corrective measures based on consensus building exercises with all stakeholders.
“The initial worrying atmosphere created with the differences that arose between the various stakeholders of the Foothills Road Project under Wokha jurisdiction following the refusal of two construction firms to sign implementation agreements with the Nagaland Foothills Road Coordination Committee (NFRCC) seems to be taking a turn for the worse, if the ongoing public war of words between the NFRCC and the state’s Public Works (R&B) Department is any indicator. The discord, if not addressed immediately, could very well end up imperiling the implementation of the Foothills Road Project, thereby dashing the hopes and prayers of untold people in the state who are deeply invested in this historic initiative,” stated the NPCC.
The Committee expressed that the need of the hour is the initiation of corrective measures based on consensus building exercises with all stakeholders. It considered “the esteemed department’s attempts to disown and delink the NFRCC from the project by likening it to an uninvolved and uninvested third party should have been the last thing on the agenda in pursuance of the cause”.
Download Nagaland Tribune app on Google Play
The NPCC acknowledged the immense contribution of the NFHRCC, and the pivotal role that it played in the realisation of the extraordinarily unprecedented collective people’s project throughout the last many years, deeming it as being mandated by the people of Nagaland. “Any effort to take away the moral stakeholdership of the NFRCC from this endeavor will not only be untenable but also self defeating,” viewed the Committee.
It also asserted that, “a perusal of the implementation agreement which is at centre of the present discord clearly establishes the fact that it is coming from a place of constructiveness and accountability, with the central aim of ensuring quality control and timely completion of the project. In fact, the NFHRCC’s insistence on adoption of the implementation agreement by the contractors is all the more validated by the many instances of unfinished and unexecuted projects by the government of the day in its long history of utter corruption and misgovernance.”
In this regard, the Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee has strongly urged the concerned authorities to find a way out of the impasse, preferably, and “rightly with the active involvement and stewardship of the NFRCC as well as other similarly affected civil societies, rather than without”.
