Patricia Mukhim
The electorate of Meghalaya places great premium on stability. When the state suffered from the politics of musical chairs for several decades, people aspired for stability with the hope that the incumbent government will be given time to carry out its stated objectives. We have had stability for nearly seven years now. And what are the results? What were the deliverables at the beginning of the MUA-1 government? Does anyone know? Did we ask the Government to share with us the list of priority areas that need urgent redress? Did we ask Chief Minister, Mukul Sangma to share the roadmap that he has envisaged for Meghalaya under his watch? What are the visible signs of development today? Other than the Nongstoin-Tura highway the Shillong- Jorabat highway and the Shillong-Jowai bypass, are there any major projects that the Government can claim credit for? And by the way the above three projects are all central government projects where the state has very little or no role to play.
Isn’t seven years long enough to show results? Of course it is and if you ask me, we have been very patient to wait so long for a miracle we thought would be wrought by a young and dynamic chief minister. Alas we are proved wrong yet again for Meghalaya is a very poor performing state on several indices.
Let me list some of the most problematic areas.
Power: The MeECL is in the ICU but no one will admit it until it completely collapses. The patience of a gullible public has almost run dry. It will not be long before the public gherao the office of the Corporation. East Jaintia Hills and part of Garo Hills are without power for weeks and no one lifts a finger or even sighs because people are so used to getting the worst out of the government and its institutions. Worse, people don’t ask questions because they are conditioned to listen to lectures, when actually those who lecture us should be listening more and talking less. In the city of Shillong, power outage has become so outrageously frequent that it is impossible to carry out any activity that is linked to energy. In every locality power goes for at least a dozen times a day, thereby rendering all power-related activities infructuous ! Yet the Chairman MeECL continues to adorn his chair as if all’s well with the world around him!
MeECL is Corporation that reeks of incompetence and slackness. A Chairman of a power corporation needs to be technically, managerially and financially sound so that he knows exactly what is wrong with the Corporation and fixes it. Instead what we have is an IAS officer with no technical skills whatsoever, earning his income from a Corporation that is sinking every day. But why would he care? In the present system he is only answerable to the Government which appointed him and pays him. And he can give a litany of reasons why the Corporation is ailing and need constant injection of funds. The Government listens to him with a bleeding heart and pumps in more money. So here is a classic case of good money going down the drain year after year. And no one winches. Not the Chairman cum CEO; not the engineers who are very glib at misleading the generalist babus; not the staff whose only objective is to get paid at the end of the month. So all you have is a decrepit Corporation which is like Air India, is deep in debt and few takers should it be auctioned off.
Now coming to that grisly part about privatisation of the power sector, let’s not forget that MeECL owns prime property around the Umiam Lake and in several parts of the state as well. In recent times it appears that MeECL has lost some of the property in litigation. It’s time the people of this state seek RTI answers on the total assets of the MeECL; how much those are worth in current real estate prices; how much land the Corporation has lost by way of litigation, why and to whom. It would be interesting to find out who is benefitting from the loss of the MeECL. Also which are the parties/individuals acquiring real estate in and around the Umiam Lake which were earlier owned by the Corporation! Does the MeECL have all the documents of all the lands under its ownership? I ask these questions because we often forget that this state has produced tribal elites with a vested interest in capturing prime property by riding roughshod over community rights; by violating even the sacredness over the ‘commons’(collective ownership) such as water bodies, community forests, water sources and catchments. When we talk about tradition and safeguarding the rights of indigenous people, it is land which is the most critical of all resources. If land is lost we are fighting a losing battle. And if a sizeable chunk of our rural population is landless and we are still silent, then let’s face it – we have already lost the battle. Everything else, the rigmarole of elections, the promise of a better future are in the realm of nostalgia. We are living in the real world; a cruel world where only those with political patronage make it to the top of the economic ladder. Everyone else falls between the cracks and is simply struggling to survive.
Education: Coming to education, Meghalaya should be ashamed of the poor learning outcomes. From the educational hub of the region it has slipped into a position that’s lower than Arunachal Pradesh and slightly higher than some of the most backward states of the country. In the 3rd round of the National Achievement Survey conducted by UNICEF in 5 districts of the state, in 243 schools and 2927 students, Meghalaya fared the lowest from among the 8 North Eastern states. In Language, Meghalaya scored only 1.9 with Manipur scoring highest at 3.7. In Mathematics, Meghalaya again scored 1.9 with Nagaland scoring the highest at 3.4.
And the reasons are not far to seek. In Meghalaya only 11% of students join the Science stream as compared to 70% in Manipur. This is a problem that should be addressed urgently but is anyone worried? Not the Education Department; not the Education Minister. Its business as usual since no one is held accountable for the one lakh students who have dropped out in the last five years. And look at what MBoSE does! It continues to treat education as a commercial venture so it buys books from private publishers, replete with spelling and factual errors and which cost more and therefore means more burden for parents, instead of procuring books that are more affordable from the NCERT. If this is not a problem for the Government then I wonder what is! Yet there is no discussion ever on education and no mention in the election manifestoes of political parties. This affects our youth, our future! No wonder there’s a growing number of drug users. What else do they do?
Roads: None of the roads are built according to specifications. Repairs don’t last beyond one season. Where is all the money then? Who has pocketed the money? Don’t we have the right to know? Look at the width of the roads in the localities of Shillong. They are fit only for one vehicle. Is this how road making is supposed to be?
Water: The less said the better. The PHED must be overhauled and the corrupt shown the door. Hopefully a new government with no history will be able to do that! As of now we are all buying water from private vendors!
Traffic: A Government that has no vision to envisage a more scientific traffic movement within the capital city and has no guts to direct the schools to use school buses to ferry students, does not deserve another term. And if we are foolish enough to give power to the same set of people then let’s not complain any more for after that is the deluge.
So we are preparing for the next elections with the hope that things will be better. How can that happen when the same people only change their uniforms and contest from different parties? Will their outlooks change? Will their corrupt nature change? No way! In fact many are in politics for pure business interests! Nothing yields such quick returns in so short a time than politics does. It’s the best business! You only have to look at the wealth ranking of our politicians and their acquisitions to know you are being royally ‘had.’ So while the electorate has been sinking into the poverty pit the elected today are billionaires.
Meghalaya needs a new government that will have the courage of conviction to address corruption in the MeECL, the PHED, PWD, Health, Education et al!