When a small town for twenty five thousand people suddenly morphs into an unplanned city, there is bound to be governance problems. The location of the Harijan Colony – a residential complex for workers in the Shillong Municipality and Khasi Hills District Council (KHDC) – adjacent to the Iew Mawlong (a hardware market adjacent to Iewduh the main wholesale market) was bound to become a flashpoint. An incident that happened on May 31 sparked off an agitation that carried on until June 4. Since then Shillong has been under curfew. The Harijan Colony was located there when Iew Mawlong was not the busy, congested and messy hub that it is today. The population then was manageable. But four or five decades down the line the number of settlers have grown exponentially and if their antecedents are to be checked then not all are employees of the KHDC or the Shillong Municipality. Moreover, in recent years commercial adjuncts have also sprung up ostensibly as means of livelihood. The crowding is also a health hazard. On Monday a body of hawkers met the Chief Minister and his team to put forward their demands for relocating this Colony to avoid future clashes.
It is a matter of concern that in Meghalaya there is no land use planning. Everything is everywhere. The Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA) in its years of existence has not divided this city into zones in which various uses are permitted and others are not permitted. Hence residential areas cannot transform themselves into commercial areas or markets. The zoning of an area is to provide maximum comfort and convenience to people. The purpose of zoning is to improve public health, safety, convenience, and welfare of citizens. Granted that Shillong is not a planned city but MUDA has within its set up qualified town planners who should have ignited this thought. That is their primary task. Their task is not just to check out building plans. But none of that happened in so many decades. It took a flashpoint of Thursday last for the Government to deal with an issue that successive governments have pushed to the backburner despite its potential for conflict. The MDA Government has now formed a High Powered Committee to study the matter and find solutions to this long pending eyesore.