Scams are not new to Meghalaya. The first major scam in Meghalaya happened in the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) of Meghalaya in 1985 where against a Departmental allocation of Rs 40 lakhs the Executive Engineer placed orders for materials worth Rs 13.27 crore and had even managed to pay a bunch of high flying contractors Rs 4.63 crore. This was a huge amount at the time and one contractor even purchased a Mercedes Benz at a time when many did not even know how to spell the word. Interestingly the Executive Engineer, RB Giri’s antecedents are quite astounding. He started his career as a member of road maintenance gangs and had not even passed his Matriculation. He was promoted to the rank of an overseer and later promoted in quick succession and made Executive Engineer in August 1983. Giri held three other posts while he was Executive Engineer, Jowai in the PHE Department’s Jowai division. Following the outrageous scam an enquiry commission was set up by Chief Minister WA Sangma but the politicians involved escaped punishment. RB Giri was arrested but released on bail. There was no system of checks and balances then. There isn’t any such system now if we go by the annual CAG reports.
The PHED whose nomenclature entails looking after public health has done everything but that. Ironically, the man most talked about even today and the longest serving electrical engineer heading the PHED and also the money-spinning Greater Shillong Water Supply System (GSWSS), is alleged to have siphoned off money at the cost of public health. He has now succeeded in getting himself elected to the State Assembly. In 2016 three persons from Sohra, Umroi Madan and Jowai had accused the then Chief Engineer, PHED of sanctioning huge funds under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan for a few villages under Mawphlang constituency “for political gains” as he wished to contest the 2018 Assembly elections. The Organisation even wrote to the Prime Minister asking for investigation into PHE schemes in rural Meghalaya but nothing came of this complaint.
In March 2017 several leading NGOs had dared the then MUA Government to institute a CBI enquiry into the GSWSS since after spending over Rs 130 crore on the Shillong scheme, most households continue to suffer water scarcity. As can be expected nothing was done and Sunn is sitting pretty today lecturing the PHE Minister on how to do his job. What travesty is this!
