Naypyidaw: A Dusty Work in Progress
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Naypyidaw: A Dusty Work in Progress


By Clive Parker OCTOBER, 2006 - VOLUME 14 NO.10


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Telephone lines and an electricity supply—said to be the best in the country—are in service.

 

 

Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the head of the SPDC, reportedly moved into his 4,000 square-meter residence to the east of the Rangoon-Mandalay highway in February suggesting that too is finished—workers said they are no longer permitted into the compound, which is built into a hillside, without written permission from a senior defense official. The restricted military zone, including a high school for the children of high-ranking officials, also appeared to be nearing completion.

 

Nevertheless, after two and a half years of construction, Naypyidaw still lacks the infrastructure required to support a community.

 

High-ranking officials have fared much better than the government rank-and-file, whose living accommodations consist at the moment of makeshift huts o­n the outskirts of the city, the son of o­ne government employee complained. The construction of permanent housing for low-level civil servants forms part of the second phase of development and could take years to complete.

 

There are few places to buy anything in Naypyidaw—in fact, few places to do anything as a visitor. The o­nly shops lie o­n the edge of the new city o­n the road east to old Pyinmana. Many roads are o­nly partially complete. The convoys of construction vehicles that circulate day and night throw up thick clouds of dust that sting the eyes and throat.

 

Burma’s new capital is still very much a work in progress, and the civil servants transferred there since last November—at least those prepared to talk—are unanimous in their dissatisfaction. o­ne could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, from the highly embellished reports in Burma’s state-run press.

 

One article in The New Light of Myanmar in August provided this rosy depiction of the dusty capital: “A long row of new departmental buildings…in Naypyidaw has become a majestic scene for anyone visiting the place,” the article declared. “It will not be wrong to say that service personnel have entered a new age.”

 

In light of other capital relocations, the limited progress in Naypyidaw after more than two years of effort is unsurprising. Brazil took 41 months to relocate its capital inland from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia in 1960, and even then, despite years of planning, the new city was hardly able to accommodate its new residents—the city’s first shopping mall arrived 11 years later.



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