While large sections of the public were adamant to challenge the unreasonable call for a 36 hour bandh by the Hynniewtrep national Liberation Council (HNLC) the government’s own employees appear to be in cahoots with the bandh callers. The question many are asking today is whether the employees, especially the underlings whose appetite for work is non-existent, are getting paid for the days they decide to stay away on the flimsy pretext of bandhs? It is the experience of many that middle and lower level government employees are most articulate in seconding the stance taken by any pressure group or militant organisation. They have always tacitly supported bandh callers for it affords them a paid holiday.
Most government offices were locked and presented a dismal sight. If the President were to have observed this pathetic scenario he would have wondered if there is a Government in Meghalaya. Even if people don’t turn up for work, the least that can be done is to keep the gates ajar. The less said about educational institutions the better. They seem to be the most bandh abiding institutions next to government employees. Here too the pattern is familiar. Teachers, particularly those getting government pay, will carry home their salaries even if they don’t turn up for work. And mind you it is not students who are indolent. But teachers who are absent from their posts! They certainly live a charmed life. That the government is caught in a paralysis of sorts where it is unable to enforce its writ on those it pays, is amply clear. No pay cut measures announced yet despite the absence without leave. Why is government pampering its employees?
Meghalaya was ranked amongst the least developed state in the country recently by the Reserve Bank governor, Raghuram Rajan. But we did not need this adverse certificate to tell us how badly placed we are in terms of citizen’s access to basic services. Access to health care is abysmal. Access to potable drinking water is still a pipe dream for many villagers. Sanitation even in urban Meghalaya is in a shambles. About the only sign of prosperity are the swanky vehicles costing several lakhs of rupees which each Minister/Parliamentary secretary and the top bureaucrats are driving around in. Is it not a contradiction in terms that a poor state should waste needless public resources for personal comfort? Time to seek answers from the public servants!
