A city is as smart as its planners are. Sometimes you wonder what ideas the city planners are selling the government. After all they are experts in town and country planning and have a degree in the subject. So far we see no long term plan to change the contours of this city despite the traffic nightmare which is our daily fare. Visitors coming in by air up to Guwahati airport and taking a taxi to come to Shillong are known to be stuck for hours together at the Mawlai petrol pump- NEHU junction. That junction is crammed but it is mind boggling as to why taxis are allowed to halt and lift or drop passengers right near that point. The need for a flyover at this point cannot be understated. Even a simpleton will know that the Mawlai-NEHU junction can no longer take the kind of traffic that converges there unless there is a diversion. And a diversion is possible only if there is a flyover.
In Meghalaya there is a long hiatus between conceptualizing an idea and its operation. Flyovers were spoken of at least ten years ago and they were proposed to be constructed through Keating Road but some problems arose and the project was shelved and never considered thereafter. This is not how things work. If there are problems to any proposal those have to be surmounted by engineering skills. Granted that such skills many not be available in-house, given the poor quality of all construction work in Meghalaya. Hence the project should be conceptualized and executed by experts, including international experts. There is no dearth of funds for such projects if the state has vision and foresight but what we have seen over the decades is the complete absence of a think-tank in the Government. All Governments that have come to power in Meghalaya have been reactive. We see no pro-activity because that involves thinking. It is bad enough that after 45 years of statehood Meghalaya does not have a fully functioning airport which means that visitors to Meghalaya have to take the three hour long road journey to Shillong and then get caught for another two hours or more at the Mawlai-NEHU junction. This onerous journey has actually deterred many guest lecturers from coming to the IIM Shillong, NEIGRIHMS and other institutions of higher learning. Will the next government have the political teeth to take swift decisions on smarting up the city with or without the central government granting Meghalaya the Smart City funds?