SHILLONG: The NPP-led MDA Government has completed half its term of 2.5 years this month. At the half-way mark, it would be appropriate to take a look at the performance report. Although the Conrad Sangma-led government has enumerated it’s physical achievements, to be fair, the Government was beset with waves of challenges on law and order front.
Two months into its tenure, the Punjabi lane incident proved to be quite a tumultuous experience for a Government led by a young chief minister. This was followed by the Inner Line Permit demand and then the CAA protests that kept everyone on the edges.
Early this year, Covid-19 has tested the government to its limits.
In order to get different perspectives, The Shillong Times spoke to a few opinion makers and sought their views on the achievements of the MDA Government and whether some things could have been done differently.
Congress MLA, Himalaya Shangpliang said, “The two and a half years have been a different wave of fresh experiences under the MDA government. It has paved ways for perspectives, reflecting on possibilities and new learning, particularly during the Covid-19 situation. One notices that each and every individual in the state has high expectations from the government.
As Abraham Lincoln once famously said, commitment is what transforms a promise into a reality. Hence leaders should uphold their promises because service to the people is service to God.
Leaders should commit to consistency so that their platform would hold strong roots of foundation.
The Government’s should make good its promise made to farmers; for livelihood creation and market facilities as they are the backbone of the country.
Government should commit more resources to healthcare services, encourage women’s empowerment and take crimes against women and children as a pressing matter because they are the future of this country.
These foundations should be rooted first, to safeguard and uphold as a priority.
If the Government makes progress in these areas it will not only bring pride but finally a distinguishable Meghalaya in the eyes of the country. Shangpliang observed.
Rangbah Shnong of Laitumkhrah Gordon Bruce Sawkmie, is of the opinion that drastic measures need to be taken to make the traditional institutions more effective, inclusive, democratic, and accountable.
“Large scale unemployment of educated youth is a problem that will have serious consequences unless targetted interventions are put in place in various sectors of the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors. More young people with modern skills and outlook are needed to be part of traditional institutions to stem the lack of direction,” Sawkmie said adding that radical changes to the traditional institutions should be in the forefront of the Government’s goals as it looks forward to the second half of its term.
Sawkmie further added, “If the status quo is allowed to remain, I am afraid that, without the active participation of the youth in reformed traditional institutions, the promises made will remain unfulfilled.”
Education Minister, Lahkmen Rymbui said there will always be a disconnect between decisions taken by Government and what is experienced by people on the ground because results take time.
But as Education Minister of this Government I can say with full faith that our twin objectives are Accessibility and Quality. To this end we have tailored our policies. The aim of this Government is to ensure that primary education is strengthened by improving infrastructure; to ensure that children have access to primary education and continue up to high school and higher education. We have enabled extension and renovation of about 250 primary school.
The Shillong Engineering College construction which started in 2017 was not even 20% complete in November 2019. We are speeding up construction and hope to start classes by 2021. Similarly the College of Architecture at Tura too is being envisaged to start in 2022.
Meghalaya had already come up with its own Education Policy but now that the New Education Policy (NEP) has been passed by Government of India we plan to take the best of both policies to suit our environment and taking into account our resources. It would be good to have a nuanced Education Policy. Merit Scholarship which was earlier Rs 100 per month at the Primary School Level has now been raised to Rs 600 per month.
(Contd on P-10)
Bouquets and brickbats…
(Contd from P-1) It is true that Post-Matric merit scholarship is sometimes delayed but that is due to delay by the Centre.
To prevent stagnation the Government has promoted 25-30 Joint Directors of Education who were earlier all Acting JDs. We are also considering promotion of Assistant Teachers to incentivise them.
Chairman, State Planning Board, Lambor Malngiang speaking on the present government said, “Our Government took over at a crucial stage. Revenue generation was at an all time low from 2015 onwards due to ban on coal and no serious efforts were made to resolve the issue. Much of the budget from different departments was diverted to Integrated Livelihoods and Basin Development Mission with little result in improving livelihoods of the poor. It took more than a year to put things in order,” Malngiang said.
He added that thereafter a number of concrete steps were taken by the MDA Government in tourism, road, education, water supply sector etc. “The actual results will be seen starting by the end 2021. For e.g. in my constituency Laitkor the water supply scheme will start soon with many link roads which should have been done decades earlier. Similar projects have been started in many constituencies. Covid has affected us badly. Government has to concentrate on generating revenue, create livelihoods for people, develop agriculture, horticulture tourism etc.” Malngiang observed.
Chairman, Grand Council of Chiefs, John Kharshiing: “To analyse the performance of the MDA Government is a challenge as the first few months would have been a period of acclimatisation with a number of new MLAs. However, the honeymoon period is over and people on the ground are beginning to size up after a period of over two years.
Some of our observations are – the proposed Amendments to the Sixth Schedule should have been an opportunity to provide transparency and empowerment right to the grassroots and there should have been more detail in depth deliberations so as to provide clarity to the various issues and conflicts that prevail and will continue to prevail, given that almost the entire state is under the Sixth Schedule.
The relevance of the Sixth Schedule its inability to complete codification of the Traditional Institutions the Chiefs of the 54 Hima, 19 Elaka and 1400 Nokmas in Khasi, Jaintia and Garo hills respectively has been one of the drawbacks and probably there should have been a serious discussion on the merits to depoliticise the institutions of the ADCs including re-structuring their governance framework. This would have benefited the citizens.
We continue to live in denial as to the ADCs should’nt we once again unite the KHADC and JHADC into one ADC as it was earlier ? As records and archives prove that it was divided purely to further the political interest of certain political parties during 1960-1964. Hence on this front we the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo people have probably once again missed the bus as the State Government preferred the status-quo.
The decision of the State Government to challenge the Lokayukta Orders in High Court in our view has been a misguided decision.
The unending failure to clamp down on illegal coal trucks has posed questions as to the seriousness of the government in plugging the precious revenue leaks.
Even after so many visits to New Delhi, the inability of the State Government to convince its coalition partner at the Center to respect the official unanimous assembly resolutions on Coal and Forest is a let down.
Resolving the legislative conflicts would bring about better and effective regulations locally and plug the revenue leaks instead the continued delay by the centre has led to increase in illegalities on these subjects and loss of huge revenue in absence of central amendments.
This highlights the lack of clarity within the Constitution of India vis-a-vis federalism.
Upgradation of Health care needed a serious push and this pandemic has shown how far we are behind.
Not much effort has been made in resolving the Boundary issues both with Bangladesh and with neighbouring Assam. With Assam it can be safely said that there is no more time since they will be in election mode in next few months and hence another lost opportunity and status-quo continues for the next two years.
The covid-19 pandemic has made matters worse as the economy nationally is and will be badly hit which will further impact the small states.
The very fact that probably over twenty five thousand youths returned is a matter of grave concern as most were employed/studying outside the state.
Inter community conflict resolution has not been effective and led to a number of law and order situations.
The Official Assembly Resolution on ILP has suddenly gone to the backburner and will soon erupt again leading to unrest.
Sadly the Meghalaya State Finance Commission Act 2012 is yet to be implemented.
Late PA Sangma former Speaker Lok Sabha convened special sessions to discuss Education, and other important subjects, would expect his son to do the same. We expected and end to the very short sessions and debates as there is a lot to be openly deliberated and discussed in the floor of the Assembly.
The good news is that finally after 48 years the question on the application of the Meghalaya building Bye Law 2011 (As Amended 2015) as per agreement between the Urban Affairs and KHADC in Feb 2019. After so much heated debates and demonstrations ADCs agrees to implement the same building bye law. However when will the ADCs create awareness on this issue is something we will have to wait and see.
More transparency in the Finance and Planning Department so that the public /citizens learn the actual health of the state in terms of its revenues and expenditure.
Inviting the Transparency International (India Branch) to assist in such matters would further raise the governance benchmark of the State. We continue to witness the red tape during the 30th and 31st March of 2019 and 2020 wherein expenditure is made via call deposits. We would have expected this to stop which is partly not possible as Delhi continues on the same timeline to release sanctions. As a small state it would appear we would be expecting too much as most issues are dictated by the powers that be from the Centre.