The Manipur government has once again sought a tried and tested tool in one of India's longest-running ethnic conflicts the Unified Command meeting three years into the conflict. On Monday, the state's top civil, police and military officials met together at the Chief Minister's Secretariat in Imphal, where the chief minister, Yumnam Khemchand Singh, went over the same agenda that has dominated governance of the state since the mayhem began between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities in May 2023 law and order, highway security and the ever-tender issue of whether a truck can reach Dimapur without being stopped, taxed thievishly or set ablaze.

The list of guests was impressive, including Chief Secretary Puneet Kumar Goel, Security Advisor Kuldiep Singh, DGP Mukesh Singh, some senior Army officers from 57 Mountain Division and IGAR (South), Intelligence Bureau and Border Security Force's representatives and officers from the Manipur-Nagaland sector of the CRPF. It was the subsequent meeting in the series that was more significant. Right after the security review Khemchand Singh sat in a meeting with the transporters of bus services and discussed the resumption of the Imphal-Guwahati and Imphal-Dimapur bus services, which have been suspended or operating on a "wing and a prayer" basis for most of the past three years. That juxtaposition a security huddle that has intruded into a commercial one is the story: Manipur's crisis has moved beyond the purely political or communal to a very real logistics and livelihoods issue.

But the statistics behind the change are drastic. The state's main lifeline, National Highway 2, connecting the various parts of the Imphal area with Dimapur, has been the scene of frequent blockades by rival community organizations since the violence started. When it closes, freight is required to move to NH-37 through Jiribam, which is currently being widened and is full of landslides and choke points, and is regarded as too hazardous to operate on. Once, truckers used to complete their Guwahati-Imphal round trip in about two days, but now their trips take as many as 11 or 15 days, and even a month in the worst cases. Each additional day on the road is an expense that is transferred directly to the consumer, in a state that imports nearly all of its consumption, including fuel, cement, grain and medicine. It is worth noting that the Chemists and Druggists Association in Manipur has earlier complained about the shortage of essential drugs by up to 40 per cent during peak blockade period, which ought to raise a red flag for anybody who views this as a mere security issue and not a public health concern.

This is where the economics part of the equation gets lost in the security part of the equation. Based on statistics widely reported by rights groups and estimates from local authorities, over 260 people have been killed and about 60,000 have been displaced since 2023. Imphal's informal economy, especially its women-led market at Ima Keithel, has been a cornerstone of the valley's economy for generations, but businesses there say their sales have plummeted by more than 80 percent in the worst days of unrest. The arithmetic no longer adds up: higher transport costs, uncertainties about curfew times, and a much bleaker market than the ones that would take a price hike. Take that multiplied by a state whose economy is still far more dependent on trade, agriculture and small manufacturing than it is on anything else, and you've got a state that is been losing blood for three consecutive years without a single and a neat and tidy way to heal it.

There's a bigger lesson here that extends beyond Manipur's borders and it is one that has been under the watch of industry players who have been following the Northeast connectivity drive in India for some time: security stabilisation and economic recovery go hand-in-hand. You can't go back to the confidence of investors in a state, you can't lure investors who can bring the kind of capital the northeast so much needs like the Act East scheme, whilst the two arterial roads are under the control of the community group that last put up a blockade. Capital is patient about much, but not about the logistical expenses that are unpredictable. Every month NH-2 remains in turmoil is a month that Manipur is pushing further back the gap between itself and Assam, Tripura and even Nagaland in the race for investment in the North East which New Delhi has been trying to create for a decade.

Khemchand Singh, who was appointed in charge in February after almost a year of President's Rule after N. Biren Singh quit, had assumed office in an assembly in suspended animation. On paper, his government's efforts to reopen highways to all communities and revive interstate bus connectivity is the right move, and that is the way it should work. However, this is a movie which Manipur has already seen. The same free-movement movement in March 2025 failed to achieve anything after being stoked by a protester who was shot dead near Kangpokpi within hours. The difference between declaring a bus service and a family feeling safe enough to board it is where all previous 'normalisation' in this state has come to a standstill.

The key to moving the needle, however, is not the number of stars that are in the room at the Unified Command meeting, but that the state can translate its security guarantees into repeatable, bankable logistics insured cargo movement, predictable transit windows, and transporters who no longer view Manipur as a hazard route that they must charge a risk premium for. Until then, all the meetings at Babupara will keep announcing the same headline with a different date, and the state's economy will keep paying the daily cost of a peace which is more than nominal.