By Patricia Mukhim
Sometime in 2010, Dr Mukul Sangma who was then the Chief Minister for the first innings, initiated the framing of a bill for social auditing of all government programmes, projects and schemes in the State. His contention was that politicians always faced the rough end of the stick for schemes that were poorly implemented or were unnecessarily delayed. In Meghalaya, people have the habit of equating the government with politicians only. Since bureaucrats are faceless and are hardly seen or heard people tend to blame politicians for all the ills of governance.
Accordingly a group of people led by former civil servant and former Vice President IFAD, Mr Phrang Roy and which included academics from NEHU and civil society activists, met several times to come up with a Bill that would have empowered citizens to seek accountability not just from their elected representatives but from the bureaucracy which is actually the implementing agency. The group worked pro-bono and gave their time and energies to study the model of social audits in Andhra Pradesh which is said to be working very efficiently insofar as monitoring of the NREGA is concerned. In Meghalaya too the social audit on NREGA unearthed several irregularities and FIRs were filed against some Rangbah Shnong who could not give a proper account of the implementation of the 100-day employment guarantee scheme. In the case of Meghalaya the fault cannot be laid entirely at the doorstep of the Dorbar Shnong which were roped in to implement the Scheme. They were not capacitated to become implementers and had no training in accounting procedures. At that time the Freedom Project, an NGO played an active role in the social audit of NREGA in Jongksha and adjoining villages. They trained the women of the villages to ask the right questions and get the correct answers from the Village Employment Councils. Some women were threatened by the Rangbah Shnong and office bearers of the Dorbar Shnong but they persisted with their questioning. In the process the women felt empowered as they could now hold the leaders of the traditional institutions (which are considered holy cows and beyond questioning) accountable. But the men heading an institution that is inherently patriarchal, as it comprises only male members, were not happy with this development. They felt threatened by this new-found power of women. They still feel threatened by “Ka ‘iar kynthei” as they commonly refer to women who dabble in politics.
One of the reasons why the Government Committee for drafting a Village Administration Bill headed by former CM, DD Lapang fizzled out is because some women in that Committee demanded equal power sharing in the traditional institutions. Naturally this was seen as sacrilegious especially by those who are loudest in defending the status quo of “tradition.” A certain Rangbah Shnong who headed the working committee was one day summoned by the traditionalists and told that he should quit the Committee and go along with the VAB enunciated by the District Council. He developed cold feet and did accordingly. So the Government appointed Committee does not have a draft bill today. But now the Government cannot be accused of drafting a VAB without consulting the stakeholders since one of the major stakeholders (Rangbah Shnong) copped out.
Now coming back to the Social Audit Bill one is tempted to ask Dr Mukul Sangma why he has the jitters now about taking the Bill to the cabinet and sharing it with his cabinet colleagues. Is he waiting for an opportune time? When will that opportune time come? Like Narendra Modi, Dr Mukul Sangma too made many promises of good governance when he first assumed the power of CEO of Meghalaya. He spoke like a CEO and we used to hang on to his every word because we never heard that sort of corporate vocabulary from politicians ruling this state. Most of their speeches were and are boring, pedantic and predictable. It is a pain to have to sit through a meeting and listen to such speeches. Dr Sangma was (at the time) young, dynamic and a breath of fresh air. We had high hope that he would usher in change in certain sectors of governance. We believed he would come down heavily on cabinet colleagues who were not performing or under-performing. We thought he would haul up officers who did not come up to scratch. Alas! Five years down the line we are back at square one. Perhaps even worse we have slid down a peg or two. I had written in these columns that the roads of Shillong today are as bad as those in Nagaland. Perhaps we are competing with states that have the worst indicators. We have not heard Dr Sangma taking a meeting on Roads and Bridges and pulling up the PWD Minister and his team in that Department! Dr Sangma perhaps feels he does not need the votes or the support of the Khasi-Jaintia Hills and that if the MLAs/Ministers who belong to the region don’t care a damn about governance in their areas then why should he have sleepless nights over that.
There are some who allege that Dr Mukul Sangma is diverting all development schemes to his constituency of Ampati. I would not like to comment on this ‘gossip’ unless an RTI proves that gossip to be true. But the point is that a CM cannot treat one part of the state as deserving of his priority and leave the other regions to stew in their juices. This is not what leadership is all about. Bad governance is reeling its ugly head in Meghalaya and we see it in various sectors. We still do not have a Health Policy hence the Health Department is functioning like a rogue elephant where procurement of medicines and equipments has become the only priority and as expected has turned into a scam instead of a life saver.
In Education we see no light at the end of the tunnel. There is no initiative to make education more market oriented and to rejig the outmoded curriculum. Skill development in Meghalaya is at a nascent stage. Quite a number of young people are churned out for the service industry but that’s not the only skill required. In fact the skills taught should also be culturally sensitive. Tourism is opening up in Meghalaya and it is important for Dr Sangma’s Government to move away from implementing projects to facilitating entrepreneurs who have a passion for the trade. Government has already messed up enough by creating concrete structures in places like Jakrem and Mawlynnong. Those in charge of Tourism have are blinkered by a lack of understanding of what village life is all about. Many of us cringe when we see how the hot springs of Jakrem have been turned into taps. We see consultants roaming the corridors of the state secretariat. Why can’t we have the best consultants in tourism if we are paying good money? The Orchid Restaurant in Nongpoh has gone to seed. There is not one good, classy, clean café or dhaba or paid toilet for visitors. One hears that the Bamboo Hut people would be taking over the Nongpoh facility. We hope they meet with visitors’ expectations.
So the point of this article is that the citizens of Meghalaya are not brainless dimwits. Many of them have creative and imaginative ideas provided government allows them to participate in the planning process. And because they are enterprising and intelligent they are also the best people to monitor and audit schemes articulated and implemented here. An entrepreneur in Tourism would be best placed to socially audit the implementation of Tourism schemes in Meghalaya and find out exactly where the revenue leakages have occurred or where resources are better spent. Retired doctors can audit health programmes and medicine and equipment procurement etc. A retired engineer can tell us exactly why the roads are so badly constructed.
I am aware that some senior bureaucrats are not happy with the Social Audit Bill and have rejected it outright on the plea that it won’t work. They would have said the same about the Right to Information Act too, I am sure. For bureaucrats, knowledge is power and withholding knowledge from the common man is their source of power. Would Dr Sangma bow before that superior might or does he have the interests of the people at heart? He has to take a call on the Social Audit Bill without waiting for people to become adversarial.