Friday, March 29, 2024
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Wanted: State’s presence on our roads

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By Paul Lyngdoh

A fortnight ago, a regular reader of The Shillong Times, Dominic Wankhar, posted a terse letter in the columns of this newspaper on the spate of hit-and-run accidents along our roads and National Highways whose frequency and intensity has become terrifying. With so much news space occupied by the antics of our politicos in the KHADC and the JHADC,apart from endless speculations about the Twelfth Man, I am dead certain few readers would actually have noticed it. Even if they did, I am again certain that a sense of ennui has by now set in that such accidents are merely a matter of statistics of little interest to those not directly impacted by the individual tragedies of the victims and their loved ones .Even more tragic is the response, or, more precisely, the sheer lack of it, on the part of the state machinery. Laissez Faire- or Go As You Please- seems to be the mantra guiding the state’s response in this respect.

Consider, for instance, the total failure of the Home (Police) Department to tone up its Traffic Wing in terms of manpower , equipment and technology . During my stint as Minister in charge Home Guards and Civil Defence, I had mobilized the services of 150 HG personnel to assist the City Traffic in managing the chaotic traffic scenario in Shillong city. Today, that number has depleted to less than half as these volunteers have not received any emoluments for the last one year! The few who persisted despite all odds would meet me at the end of every two months or so to get me to speak to some official or the other to get some token amount released. Even if the funds are released, some bright chap in the bureaucratic chain would always ensure that things move at the speed of Shillong’s traffic so that there is invariable delay by at least three months in releasing the salaries!! How this affects the morale and performance of our men in uniform seems to bother few in the decision-making hierarchy.

Then there is the manpower to volume of traffic ratio to consider. The staggering number of trucks, buses and cars cruising on our roads is being managed by a force that has neither the strength, nor the motivation nor the support to perform. With the nightmarish experiences of twelve to eighteen hours of jams fast fading from public memory, there is little pressure on the powers that be to pull up their socks. So status quo prevails. And the chilling truth about things like manpower deficiency will get ignored for some more time at least. Can you imagine the entire Ri Bhoi District, through which NH 40 passes, having just 4 Police stations and outposts, that with only Nongpoh PS having a separate Traffic Branch? Can you imagine the problem of managing Shillong city whose traffic ratio is 1 cop for every 652 vehicles? Today, Meghalaya has not been able to have proper accommodation for its 3rd. Battalion, while recruitment for the 6th. Battalion is complete. And all Police outposts and stations have less than 50% of the manpower required!

Third, the lack of co-ordination among the various arms of the Government speaks volumes of our apathy and lack of seriousness. The Police, the District Administration, the Transport Department and the PWD are never known to have worked in tandem in the respective districts. The question of inter-district co-ordination simply does not arise. When was the last time that the top honchos of these departments met? What happened to the grand idea of the Highway Patrol? What happened to the fleet of vehicles and the personnel supposedly dedicated to patrolling our National Highways?

Fourth, the impunity with which drivers- truckers in particular- get away from the clutches of the law is astounding. What happened to the cases registered by respective Police Stations? How many of them have been booked for the various offences committed? What is the rate of prosecution? Has a single trucker gone to jail for maiming and killing fellow-road users? Somebody has got to be answerable!

Then there is the frightening number of liquor joints and dens that punctuate these highways. How have they managed to escape the attention of law-enforcers so far? When were the last raids conducted? Is sale of liquor to motorists legal in Meghalaya? Add to this the lucrative narcotics trade and the fact that the state provides a relatively safe transit route to it and we have more reason to be more vigilant and put our act together.

Finally, the need to push the Inter-state Truck Terminus Project through cannot be overstated. We simply cannot have a situation where some two thousand -odd truckers travel a stretch of over two hundred kilometers with no washroom, sleep and recreation facilities and expect them not to be unduly stressed and worn out and cause avoidable mishaps along the way. I pray that Mukul Sangma and company find the time to read this particular piece !

CIRCUS TIME

THE Congress’s Enfant Terrible, Mani Shankar Aiyar, is at it again: this time, he has tagged his own party as a Circus. The utterance sounds eerily well-timed in the context of what happened to the leadership drama in the Secretariat, the KHADC and the JHADC. Like any other circus, we have our fair share of clowns, acrobats, fire-eaters and what-have-you. To top it all, it is a free show and the Directors seem to be in no particular hurry to bring it to a close.

TARUN GOGOI IN THE CLUTCHES OF A LEOPARD

THE Telegraph reported recently about an incident in which a zoo-keeper of Guwahati, a man who shares his name with the State’s Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi, was mauled by a leopard he was trying to save from a mob baying for its blood. The headlines were sedate and matter-of-fact. Unluckily, the item never made it to our Khasi dailies. With their penchant for the dramatic, the headlines would have been spiced up to read something like this: ‘Shah Dait Khla u Tarun Gogoi’ (Tarun Gogoi bitten By Leopard) or ‘Ngat u Tarun Gogoi Ha Tyngam u Khla’ (Tarun Gogoi In the jaws of a Leopard)! I wonder how Bah Maia and Lam Thabah missed out on this one!

MEGHALAYA’S IVORY TOWER

On a more serious note. What has gone wrong with Meghalaya’s top bureaucrats? I have received umpteen complaints about the Keep-Away-From-Me attitude of some of our officers whose cloistered lifestyle would rival that of a monk who has long sold his Ferrari! Granted, meeting members of the public and giving a patient hearing to their grievances is primarily a duty of elected members of the legislature. But most of these need further reference and onward transmission to the Babus, who are showing increasing impatience and lack of civility (“Civil Services’’ : what an irony!) when dealing with their own kinsmen who would, in any case, have taken a fraction of their very precious time. I know of a woman who has been unsuccessfully trying to meet our Chief Secretary with several rounds of visits, only to be told each time by an Iron Lady manning the entry point to come back when he is less busy, or is not having his lunch and so on. (The lady in question would certainly qualify for Immigration duty for Asian countries at a US airport). In fact, the dilemma of the common man here is that no one would pay attention when he approaches our babus until he takes up the matter with his MLA. The moment he does that and goes around with a note from the MLA, the irate Babu would thunder: “So you think you know so-and-so?”!!!

I have a simple suggestion to offer: every room in the Secretariat should have Gandhi’s famous words inscribed in bold letters:”

RECALL THE FACE OF THE WEAKEST MAN WHOM YOU MAY HAVE SEEN AND ASK YOURSELF IF THE STEP YOU CONTEMPLATE IS GOING TO BE OF ANY USE TO HIM.WILL HE GAIN ANYTHING BY IT? WILL IT RESTORE HIM TO A CONTROL OVER HIS OWN LIFE AND DESTINY?

This is far more important, far more elementary than the anti-terrorism pledge that our top-notch bureaucrats mouth every year on Rajiv Gandhi’s Death anniversary. If even the above talisman has no visible effect on our well-insulated bureaucracy, I suggest we do away with the physical reminder of Gandhi in the Secretariat- his white-painted, life-size statue on the lawns outside.

I am willing to be part of the Demolition Squad.

PARTING SHOT

WE simply have not learnt to live by the adage : “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”. We treat those we consider below us with general contempt, condescension and disdain. And expect those of our own station or above it to treat us with affection and respect. Mainstream Indians who would look down upon North-easterners expect the Australians, for instance, to treat them well. And an average Shillongite who would protest loudly at the gross racism of a Delhi-wallah finds no room for civility and dignified treatment for a fellow-Khasi who is not as rich or as educated as he! (The author is President KHNAM & MLA Jaiaw Constituency)

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