Meghalaya’s Chief Minister, Dr Mukul Sangma drives a hard bargain with the Planning Commission. Like someone rightly remarked, “The begging bowl has for once spilled over.” Meghalaya has got Rs 480 crores more than asked for. The total plan size is a whopping 3939 which is an increase of Rs 1212 crores over the last year. The point about this year’s Plan funds is that there is barely six months within which the money is to be spent. We are already in June and election is only ten months away. While it is true that the Chief Minister is very clear in his mind about how the Plan money is to be spent and which the priority areas are, the problem is with his cabinet colleagues who are not pulling their weight. So too a section of the bureaucracy which is plagued by lethargy and find too many reasons why things cannot be done. The Education department for instance has so much to deliver to the people of Meghalaya, but judging from the recent SSLC results coming from different districts of the State, the outcome of education is dismal. South Garo Hills registered a pass percentage of only 19%. This can mean two things. Either there is no teaching and schools are badly run with no supervision whatsoever or the students are unable to receive what is communicated to them. It could also mean that education is beset by more than the above two problems. Recently an elder from Garo Hills made a representation before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that most schools in the villages of Garo Hills are not functioning because teachers appointed by Government have sub-contracted their jobs to unqualified individuals. This would not have happened if there was strict monitoring by the Deputy Inspector of Schools. The reason education is mentioned is because the Chief Minister has listed this as a priority area and convinced the Planning Commission that attention would be paid to the sector. But if the same set of bureaucrats who have failed to deliver continue to handle the same department, things are not likely to change very much.
The Chief Minister’s optimism which seemed to have influenced the Planning Commission needs to be shared by all in the Government otherwise more money would only mean, more hopes and more disappointments as well.