The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) envisioning quality and healthy life by preserving, developing and protecting them. This era is marked by progressing towards modernity, aiming at better life and developing towards achieving this goal. Modernity is marked by well-developed infrastructure and industrial developments. Road, education, health, public transport, means of communication, internet, electricity, water supply are the basics and no longer a luxury. Without this our life is not complete and denies participate to the larger economic system which in turn develops our society further. Robert K Merton the famous American sociologists asserts that social institutions are not only functional but dysfunctional too. Dysfunctions are intended and unintended consequences in the society and it leads to negative consequences. The infrastructure of the society has made life much better, easier and accessible but at the same time has become a source of frustration and inequality when it falters.
Across the world, remote rural areas face chronic barriers to socio-economic progress. Sparse populations and difficult terrain drive up the cost of infrastructure investment, creating a cycle of underdevelopment and marginalization (Isreal, 2025). Ukhrul is no exception to this. The Government of India’s aim to make India a developed nation by 2027 is linked to improvements in its infrastructure sector (Menon, 2024), but the district lags behind, leaving residents to struggle with inadequate roads, unreliable electricity, erratic water supply, and weak digital networks. Take for example the impending completion of the National Highway 202, which the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) took over in September, 2020. The road expansion from single lane to four lanes from Yaingangpokpi to Finch corner remains incomplete leading to more strain and problems during the raining season. The road within the town is appalling, people walk on muddy roads on rainy days and dusty road on sunny days.
The district experience frequent power cut leading up to three or four days due to understaff, and low-grade and old equipment are the reason for the frequent outage. Searching for alternatives to sustain in this kind of situation is more expensive and making more difficult to sustain life. The people who can afford expensive backup systems manage to cope reinforcing class division. It affects our daily life, business, educational institutions and students’ life. Post Covid19, there are people now working from home and they have to endure frequent disruptions in their work due to power cut. The unstable internet connection only adds to the district’s seemingly endless maze of problems.
Furthermore, the town residents face acute water scarcity for decades during the dry season March to May but with the increasing population in the town the trend of scarcity is changing. Deforestation and increase climate change has led to drying up of water in the main Shirui Village source and spring ponds around the town. From end part of the year 2024 till this day, we experienced scarcity due to water pipelines that were cut-off for weeks and months due to road expansion, intensifying the scarcity. Buying water is the new culture in Ukhrul. For families who can afford to build big reservoirs survive scarcity, the rest of the common man and the poor have to struggle. Ukhrul town struggles with waste management. The town’s concerned authorities struggle with collecting waste and a proper dumping site and people’s response towards waste management have left the town with litters everywhere.
Healthcare and education show mixed progress. Private clinics and the lone government hospital have improved basic services, but specialist treatments remain out of reach. Schools still lag behind national standards, lacking modern teaching methods and facilities. This gap has become another source of class division: parents who are financially well-off can invest in private tuitions or send their children to schools outside the town, while the majority must settle for rudimentary education, limiting their future opportunities and aspirations.
The residents of Ukhrul are not wishing for high tech, marvelous skyscrapers, but just a simple life in which we can carry on our daily life smoothly. But as Merton would argue, the dysfunctions of neglected infrastructure create ripple effects: economic stagnation, social stratification, and a growing sense of exclusion from the nation’s developmental promise.
The writer is an Assistant Professor, St. Joseph College, Ukhrul
