SHILLONG: Retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer J.M. Phira, who served Meghalaya and Assam in different roles and capabilities, breathed his last on Saturday.
Phira was educated at St. Edmund’s College, Shillong and at Earl Law College, Guwahati, and joined the Assam Civil Service in 1958 and then Indian Administrative Services in 1963 and was allotted the Assam-Meghalaya Cadre.
He served the Assam Government in various capacities in several districts in both Assam Valley and Barak Valley, besides rendering years of service in Mizo Hills District, now Mizoram.
He served Meghalaya since its inception as an autonomous state in 1970 including one term as the Chief Secretary to the Government of Meghalaya. He also served as Chairman of the then MeSEB for two terms. He was also the Chairman of the Fifth Pay Commission of the then MeSEB and retired from service in 1993. He was appointed Chairman of the Third Meghalaya Pay Commission in 1995.
His has been a life of dedicated service and delivery in whatever position he was assigned. He was in the Lunglei Hills of now Mizoram State during Mautam (bamboo famine) – one of the worst famines the area had ever experienced.
In Assam, he was in the thick of action during the Silchar riots in the 1960s. He played a crucial role in the establishment of the Gauhati Medical College in its formative years during his tenure there in the Assam Civil Services.
As the then Special Secretary to the Government of Meghalaya in charge of Health, along with late Dr. Erasmus Lyngdoh, who was the then Director of health Services of the State and also personal physician to the President of India, Phira laid the seeds for the formation of NEIGRIHMS, Shillong.
He has authored a number of books on Administration in Meghalaya which are not only of scholarly interest but also of great help to the budding administrators of the State.
His book The Autonomous District Councils of Meghalaya under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India is the only comprehensive book on the District Councils in Meghalaya and is being used as a reference book by many.
U Khasi Mynta is the only book he wrote in Khasi, basically on the Customary Laws and Traditions of the Khasis. Phira will be laid to rest on Monday at Lawmali Burial Ground, Mawkhar Presbyterian Church, Shillong, at 2 pm.