By Eugene D Thomas
Scores and scores of people who have come to Meghalaya, and with whom I have had the opportunity to interact, are so enamoured with this place of natural beauty, be it the Khasi or Garo hills. However, not one of them have had a positive thing to say about the infrastructure provided by the state. Every now and again we hear and read of some Minister or the other boasting of the development taking place in the state. At times like these, I wonder whether our Government is being run by smart people who try to fool us, or by imbeciles who believe all that their bureaucrats feed them and are not inclined to do some homework for themselves!
A few days back, a family of six members so tragically lost their lives in Nongthymmai Neng under Mawphlang block. They died a horrible death through electrocution. May their souls rest in peace. But lo and behold, the Power Minister says that the MeECL is not at fault! And his conclusion is based on a preliminary report of the MeECL itself! Do you for a moment believe that a department inquiring into its own action or inaction will blame itself of wrongdoing? And if the fault is not theirs, then why announce a financial compensation at all?
The MeECL has through the years degenerated in its service and is now on the verge of collapse. For every fault, we hear the all too familiar reason of “no money.” Where has all the money gone? And the tariff here is one of the steepest in the country! It has no money to replace poles. Poles are rotting everywhere and leaning precariously towards roads or people’s compounds. If they collapse and lives are lost, then again it would not be MeECL’s fault as they have no money! Costly home appliances and equipment (like fans, fridges, TVs) are regularly burning out due to voltage spikes – this is happening here in Shillong and more frequently in Tura. Let us not even think of the rural areas. If it is not a voltage spike, it is a drop, where again equipment do not work! And power outages are so common now. In Tura, power goes off on an average every one hour and stays off for almost 15 to 60 minutes at a time. Here too in Shillong, the situation is only slightly better. I know of a gentleman who had a harrowing time on the 1st of this month at the dentist’s. Halfway through a complicated tooth extraction, the shutdown began at 8 pm. The patient had to just sit there in the dentist’s chair for half an hour because the generator was not working as the diesel was over. The power came back at 8.30 pm only to go off again 5 minutes later. It came back a second time only to go off at 8.50 pm and never came back in the Laitumkhrah and Nongthymmai areas till after 2 hours and 15 minutes. The patient had to return home with the procedure half complete and with part of the tooth still in his jaw! What trauma! But MeECL is not at fault! And worst of all is that for over four months now, in many areas of Tura like the main bazaar, the Nehru park area, and Burny Hill, there is reverse polarity; this means that live current is also passing through the neutral (negative) line, and this is extremely dangerous. Another tragedy is waiting to happen here. Despite repeated complaints made by private electrical technicians and wiremen, there is still no sign of maintenance of the transformers or their replacement – MeECL says it has no money! You apply for an electrical connection for your new home and you are asked to pay for even the poles to be erected in the public road – MeECL has no money! This corporation has time and again been bailed out for its inefficiency by the state government, and this time too, we hear that the state government is planning to financially bail it out! What an ingenious plan indeed – a good route for channelizing clean government funds for future embezzlement!
The conditions of the road in this capital city and elsewhere is pathetic. Any repair that is undertaken does not even last one monsoon season. The repair undertaken on the approach road to NEHU just before last year’s Convocation did not even last 6 months. We hang our heads in shame when academicians from across the globe and country come to this institution and pass through this road. What a first impression they must have of the state! Even the roads within a Minister’s constituency, like Lummawrie in Shillong, are in an unbelievable pathetic condition. Taking a walk in Shillong is courting disaster. The conditions of the footpaths are so deplorable that many a times I have stumbled and fallen. They are uneven, stones jut out everywhere, slabs are missing, or water pipes crisscross them! But of course, PWD has no money and there seems to be no more sense of pride and feeling left in our government babus and Ministers.
Water is the other basic need of the people. Here too the PHE has failed, whether in meeting the daily needs or maintaining its quality. There is acute water shortage in many areas in Shillong and most localities in Tura. And with all this scarcity and contamination, nothing is done to improve the situation – the Minister does not accept this fact, pipes continue to leak everywhere (the PHE blames the municipality and vice versa, and no short-run action or long-term planning is done to shift the water pipes that run along and in the roadside drains. A friend who recently visited me from South India was appalled to see the water pipes on the road near my house at Shillong – he asked me whether this is a new technology for footpaths or sieving of garbage?
And the traffic in Shillong is now at breaking point. Even in Tura, traffic jams now occur during school starting and closing times. For decades now we have heard of ‘thinking’ of flyovers and ‘expansion’ of roads. These have only remained in the tank of thoughts of the government! Every new Minister makes a big show of inspecting roads for ‘expansion.’ The traffic cops here are at their wits end. I salute them for being made to work under such physical pressure! And here too, we often hear the complain of ‘no money’ or ‘insufficient personnel.’ We the public are not bothered about the Power Department, the PWD, the PHE, the police – we know only one Government – the Government of Meghalaya. Are we to understand that there are several Chief Ministers in this state, each working in isolation? Or is there only one CM who is supposed to coordinate all departments and their requirements through the all-important departments of Planning, Finance and Personnel? Please stop blaming one another as we see through the ruse! Just get down to business and do some actual quality work that is visible to all.
The other day, I happened to see a Facebook post where a respected Editor of an esteemed English daily newspaper of Shillong had queried whether there was any path-breaking research from NEHU that has positively contributed to the affairs of the North-East. I know of many research results from NEHU that have been sent to, the Meghalaya state government, including the CM’s secretariat. But we have not seen the policy prescriptions made in these studies acted upon by the Government. I do not know if these studies are even read, or just filed, or thrown to the dustbin! And of course, expecting even an acknowledgement is asking too much from awfully busy people!
Lastly, I found it most amusing that the present Urban Affairs Minister blamed the then Principal Secretary of the Department for the mess in the SPTS! How far have we sunk in the ethics of administration! In former times, there was no former or present government. A Minister does not blame his predecessor or a former bureaucrat, because the government is the government, past or present! It is like blaming yourself! If mistakes have been committed, then correct them! Period! And discipline among Government employees seem to have declined. Often you read a statement in the newspapers from this officer or the other making a clarification of his actions. These were not heard of in earlier times. In fact, officers refrained from going public as disciplinary action would immediately be taken on them. Nowadays, this is commonly observed and can only be allowed to happen because the political bosses in Government are weak, or incompetent, or both.
This government has forfeited its moral right to rule because there is no longer any service worth its salt that is being provided – its administration is in shambles, there is no discipline, and the only seemingly happy and satisfied lot are the Ministers and some of the bureaucrats. The present government, the worst so far as I remember in five decades, seems bent on the destruction of its people rather than caring for their well-being and happiness!
They say that the people deserve their rulers! I hope this is not the case. And 2018 is coming. Its time for a new government. Here, we people should remember the saying of Edward Murrow – “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”