Through the decades, two of the most sought after and therefore prestigious jobs in Manipur have been the medical and the engineering professions. In a state where the private sector has been in a state of arrested development, these two formed the cream of all government jobs, except perhaps the Indian Civil Services, but this service is not only difficult to get into but also extremely limited in the number of intakes each year. Given the quality of education imparted in the state especially at the higher levels, this service has been virtually out of reach of most job seekers in the state. The teaching profession itself is also gaining stature in the last one or two decades, thanks to changes in policy priorities of the Government of India, but only in terms of a quantum rise of salaries of those in the profession, but hardly in the quality of services delivered, at least so far. This profession is again another subject deserving closer attention. Starting from the early years of Indian independence till about the time Manipur became a full-fledged state of the Indian Union, Manipur`™s institutes of higher learning could boast of awesome alumni, having produced some of the tallest personalities and leaders of not just Manipur, but many other Northeast states as well. Today these institutions have forsaken this priceless reputation of being the nursery of intellectuals and leaders.
Returning then to the two professions of doctors and engineers, it must be said they have always attracted the most talented students, making sure they had tremendous potential to not only grow in clout, but also spread their influences wide, touching the lives of many if not most in the state. To a very good extent they have indeed been living up to this expectation, however, today the natures of their contributions are becoming starkly different. While the medical profession, besides being an excellent job under the government`™s umbrage, has also become an autonomous enterprise, throwing up competitions within the profession to nudge each other to the pinnacles of excellence, engineering has by comparison stagnated and not grown beyond the status of a good, steady job, and for the unscrupulous, a lucrative one as well, playing along in the now infamous contractor-politician-bureaucrat nexus looting the public exchequer. Corruption however is endemic and all pervasive and it would be unfair to ridicule any particular profession alone of this scourge. Doctors and engineers are however interesting from another point of view as well.
The two are first of all vitally important for any developing economy such as ours, but they are increasingly becoming a study in contrast in Manipur. The evidences are visible everywhere. In the health sector, specialists and super specialists are coming to be an ever expanding tribe of professionals. Quality of health services too have improved considerably. In business terms, the sector is rapidly growing, with perhaps only school education as the only other sector to compete it in terms of expansion in the entrepreneurial sense. There is still a lot more for the health sector to achieve but nobody will dispute, change and growth, especially in the last few decades, have marked this sector. Compare this with the engineering sector, which is still exclusively a government enterprise. Engineers no doubt continue to grow in personal wealth, but not the quality of public infrastructures they create. As for instance, a few eucalyptus trees along our roads can warp our roads grotesquely and dangerously, and this is happening at a time when engineers elsewhere are continually coming up with impossible marvels and wonders to beat elemental adversities. How come our engineers have still not found a solution to the eucalyptus problem? Our drainage systems do not work, road tarmacs are incapable of lasting out a monsoon, water logging in Imphal has become a perennial problem, the technologies that go into our bridges and culverts have seen virtually no development since WWII, there has been little grand or innovative about the new public buildings that have come up, our cities continue to grow with little evidence of plan or foresight… and the list can go on. It does seem somewhere down the line our engineers voluntarily ceased to be engineers and preferred to be managers, or else play second fiddle to administrators. For our own sake and theirs, we hope something changes soon.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam