Winter is setting in. The rains have receded and coal mining is back with a vengeance. If there were 3000 coal trucks moving on the Jowai-Shillong-Guwahati highway during the monsoons, there will be a two-fold increase in the number of vehicles during the dry season when coal mining is at its peak. Add to this the number of trucks transporting 1000 metric tones of cement daily to places beyond Meghalaya! This has several repercussions. Since all heavy vehicles continue to traverse the city of Shillong, traffic jams are on the rise; so is noise and air pollution. Accidents have also increased manifold. But the insouciant public of Shillong have said nothing except for occasional murmurs. They have borne this menace with the patience of Job for over two decades. At no time have the public placed an ultimatum before any government to complete the Shillong bypass within a definite time frame. It was only in March this year that an enraged citizenry decided that enough is enough. What triggered the public rage was that students writing their final Board/College examinations were caught in an unprecedented traffic jam and arrived late at the venue. In that troubled frame of mind they obviously could not do their best. This in turn affected their results. A public meeting was held where the Government was wrung dry. It was the first palpable expression of public disgust at the failure of the state to alleviate the sufferings of its citizens.
Following that public meeting, the PWD minister visited the Shillong by-pass taking with him an entourage of media persons. Many politically correct noises were made by the concerned minister including that trucks could be diverted through that stretch to ease congestion. PWD engineers however, put their foot down saying that the road would collapse if is it used in its present state. That was the end of the story. The public became silent and will perhaps remain so until March 2012 when another traffic jam destroys the fates of many more students. Recently the Chief Minister spoke about timely completion of projects. We are told the Shillong bypass conceived in 1985 will take another three years before it is usable. Is this justified? Who is to be held accountable for this inordinate delay? People need to ask questions and get answers. These are issues that should make or mar the elections but they don’t. Can the people of Shillong make a pitch on some of these urgent issues affecting their daily lives, election issues? Should the future of the MLAs of Shillong city and its suburbs not depend on the delivery of these important public goods?