Nagaland | Kohima town suffers acute shortage of LPG, water

KOHIMA, December 2, 2018: As the Nagaland Hornbill Festival is going on at the Naga Heritage Village at Kisama, the people of Kohima town are badly suffering from acute shortage of water and LPG supply.

According to a press release issued by Nagaland Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) on November 2, regarding the Kohima Water Supply disruption, the restoration work for improvement and widening of National Highway-29 is still under progress.

Now, the department, in a separate release said, restoring water supply to Dairy Farm, Lerie colony, AG colony, PWD, Chandmari and some portions of Kohima town will take another 3 to 4 weeks (to fully restore the Phesama source main line). The Department stated that it will continue to keep the public posted on the progress and thanked the general public for their continued understanding and patience.

Meanwhile, the Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) refilled cylinders are not coming to Kohima for last four weeks. According to one official of a LPG distribution company, the LPG carrier trucks are not coming to Kohima due to abnormal demands of some Naga undergrounds factions and according to him, negotiations are going on to carry refilled cylinders by the trucks to Kohima, which is anticipated by the next week.

For now, several thousands of tourists, delegates, representatives and reporters for the Nagaland Hornbill Festival are staying in various hotels, lodges and home stays in and around Kohima town, who are suffering badly and they are depending on mineral water bottles or package water.

This is a cheer neglect of the Department officials, who have failed to perform their duties, the local people said.

In the mean time, the Power supply of Kohima town also playing hide and seek game in this capital town, where the Kohima nights have come to life once again with the long awaited Hornbill Night Carnival kicking off on Saturday.

The carnival is part of the annual Hornbill festival, an event aimed at promoting tourism in the state.

The event features food stalls for food lovers, street musicians for music lovers and different shopping stands for shopaholics and many more exciting activities including the Mela. The load shedding and unusual Power supply has annoyed the people, who are to enjoy Hornbill Night Carnival in dark, but the authority was silent.

Meanwhile, more than 60,000 people have visited the Hornbill Festival since its inauguration on Saturday, a state Tourism official said Sunday.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the 10-day long annual Hornbill festival on Saturday.

Altogether 63,032 visitors with 780 foreigners, 8,241 domestic tourists and 54,011 local visitors have visited the picturesque venue some 12 km south of the state capital, said assistant director of Tourism department (Statistics) T Khakihe Sumi. The inaugural day Saturday had 19,953 visitors while Sunday it rose up to 43,079 visitors, he informed.

The day was marked as National Dance and Music Day on the theme "Cultural Connect" organised North East Zone Cultural Centre (NEZCC).

The visitors were treated with cultural performances from across the country including Odisha, Assam, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir.

Besides, the revellers also got the opportunity to join the coming together of the all the Naga tribes while they were engaged in the unity performance after the NEZCC show.

(PTI)