Guwahati: The Zeliangrong-Naga dominated Tamenglong district of Manipur hit the headlines about a decade ago when the former young and dynamic Deputy Commissioner (DC) Armstrong Pame built a 100-kilometre-long road with the help of the local people without any funds from the government.
As development takes a snail’s pace there, Tamenglong incorporates into the list of the most backward districts of the country as woeful reports of people carrying sick people through the jungles on foot to hospitals, lack of government infrastructures, besides others, from the district are still pouring in.
The arrested development consistently prompted a battery of civil bodies to raise voices for uplifting the district in tandem with others.
After Pame, several DCs, who were posted in Tamenglong of Manipur, too extended their utmost efforts to grow the district in all spheres.
Amid the people’s yearning for progress, L Angshim Dangshawa (31), a young Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, joined Tamenglong as the new DC a few months ago, and soon after his joining, he spawned new ideas to shape up the district and executed one of them towards education and public hygiene front which fetched good results.
On September 15 this year, under Dangshawa’s initiatives, five mini ‘Street Libraries’ were set up at different garbage dumping sites after cleansing the trash at Tamenglong town at the district headquarters about 145 kilometres from state capital Imphal.
The library is a small bookshelf measuring about a little over 2 feet in breadth and about three feet in length and it stands without lock in different colour shades at five different locations-TBC Junction, Old Market, Rani Gaidinliu Market, Medical Gate and Bethel Church Road Junction areas of the town.
Inspiring quotes are also written on the shelves as one of them read, ‘The reader does not steal and the thief does not read.’
According to Dangshawa, the small project has been taken up to instill the minds of young children to learn, maintain discipline and sincerity as well as the general public to keep the town neat and clean.
The DC, along with his subordinate staff and the public, cleansed the areas and set up the mini libraries.
Though many schemes remained either dysfunctional or scrapped after smart beginning in the state, the mini library initiatives really worked, with young students thronging them. No garbage is now found in the street library areas.
“Many people have donated books for the street libraries. So far, the libraries are functional with young children coming and taking books.
In some cases, they have returned the books and in some cases, they have not returned. Some students have also put out new books by themselves,” Dangshawa said.
“Let us wait and see for some more time and we will get to know each other. I named the library ‘Garbage or Knowledge.’ This is just a message asking the people whether you choose the garbage or you choose the library,” said Dangshawa, who completed his MBBS course from the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) in the state’s Imphal East district in 2017.
Dangshawa, who was a sub-divisional magistrate at Paomata in the state’s Senapati district before his Tamenglong posting, said that he has taken up some more new initiatives in the health and education sectors in the district which also yielded good results.
A standard VIII student, who was searching for books at one of the libraries said, “This is the first time I am visiting this library. I have chosen a book to read and after reading, I will return it.”
His friends, who had been visiting the library frequently, said they were very happy to have such a library here. They said that earlier, there was full of garbage at the site but now, the area is clean.
A local villager of Tamenglong Daichui Gangmei while appreciating Dangshawa’s smart library initiative said, “We want to say a big thank you to the DC for his smart steps taken up in the district.”
Stating that the initiative has given an impetus to the habit of reading books among the people of the district, the students in particular, Gangmei urged all philanthropists of the district to donate more books to the street library.
