Editor,
Apropos the letter to the editor by W.L. Lyngdoh former Chief Executive Officer, Shillong Municipal Board (SMB), published in the Shillong Times on 25th January 2021 the Board would like to clarify as under: –
The SMB collects the Bio Medical Waste from all the hospitals and clinics in the City including from the areas outside the SMB jurisdiction. The waste is transported in a designated van which is fully equipped. The Bio Medical Waste Treatment and Disposal Facility at Marten which was commissioned in 2007 has been out of order and a new facility has been recently installed. The new facility is now currently under trial run and will be commissioned soon. During the lockdown period, especially with the pandemic in which some amount of waste is contaminated, the incinerable waste is incinerated at the electric crematorium. The rest are disposed of by deep-burial in accordance with the Bio Medical Waste Management Rules 2016. Instructions were issued to all Bio-Medical Waste collectors not to deviate from the Rules and other instructions given by the office from time to time. The office of the SMB is committed to provide efficient services to the City and will continue to strive for improvement.
Yours etc.,
Chief Executive Officer
Shillong Municipal Board
Meghalaya’s fall from grace
Editor,
Your by-lined column, “Meghalaya at 49: Where are we headed?” (ST Jan 22, 2021) has more negatives than positives about the state of the State. Although you started with some of the so called positives, I am afraid even these make for dismal reading. For example, you have listed several national institutes which have come up during the past few decades in the educational landscape of the state. But if these institutes are not mere showpieces, what are they? To be candid, these institutes like IIM, NIT etc have not exactly revolutionised our education system. I can say for sure these institutes have not made the slightest impact on inspiring our youth to qualify for admission. Getting Government of India to agree to set up these top institutions in Shillong is by no means an achievement of the state. Be in sync with powers that be in Delhi and these small mercies will continue to trickle in. Don’t get me wrong, I am not passing a judgment on the quality of these institutions. All I am saying is that Meghalaya has failed pathetically in taking education in the desired direction.
When we attained statehood, Shillong was the educational hub for undivided Assam. We had excellent missionary schools and colleges. Shillong used to be a big draw when it came to education. Both qualified teachers and brilliant students would flock to Shillong. But during the past five decades we have systematically destroyed the educational edifice of the state. Top billed institutes like St Edmund’s school and college, St Anthony’s college, Loreto Convent, Pine Mount et al have slid many notches below. We no more attract the bright and the brilliant. We have degree-holding teachers whose performance in most cases leaves much to be desired. In our eagerness to send our children to these institutes rather than “outsiders”, and in our quest for providing teaching jobs to our own kith and kin, we have ensured that Shillong’s fair name as an educational nerve-centre is demolished. And the creation of NEHU hasn’t helped either, except for churning out degree-holders without employability!
In the 1980’s when Meghalaya adopted all primary schools hitherto run by the KHADC, the government with one stroke of the pen picked up a huge liability of monthly salaries for teachers who were employed left, right and centre on sheer political consideration. While the salary bill went up a few notches, the quality of primary education was compromised. Aren’t we seeing the result? Our tribal students suffer from weak foundation in language, composition, arithmetic which matter in the higher classes. They struggle all the way and by some quirk of fate find themselves on the right side of the table. The cumulative effect is that our children, barring a small percentage, are struggling to reach the desired goals. After all, rote memory and nepotism have their own limitations.
The long and short of it is that our performance has been dismal and it should have been counted as negative in your write-up. Come to think of it, what is the achievement of Meghalaya in the education sector? I am told that 90% of the state’s education budget is committed to paying salary to teachers. The state always had the excuse of funds crunch. To me this is plain lack of political will. Why didn’t the state create a single State University? Perhaps, Meghalaya is one of the few states without one. Tragedy is that unlike Arunachal, Mizoram, Nagaland, in 1972 our state had a head-start which has dissipated over the decades. It would be good to know how many colleges and schools we have opened during the past 50 years. How well are they running? I know colleges like Tura Government College, Kiang Nangbah College Jowai, Williamson Sangma College at Williamnagar etc., are afflicted by various maladies that seemingly defy redemption. I am also curious to know, what happened to the idea of setting up Pine-mount-type schools? The idea apparently died a premature death the day it began to be used as a job opportunity for our “own” jobless. When the state can be so myopic in its approach, we cannot expect anything better.
Any which way we look at it, despite a significant rise in literacy levels, the overall education standard has plummeted in the state. Perhaps, that explains why for over a decade Meghalaya has been unable to produce a single student who could crack the UPSC exams. The bitter truth is that despite various concessions and facilities, there aren’t students good enough to get through by merit and merit alone. I only hope and pray that some local entrepreneurs will muster courage to create alternative private institutions as franchisees of say DPS or Amity to rebuild a structure that would defy political pressure or arm-twisting methods of pressure groups to put up superlative schools and universities during the next fifty years to help Meghalaya restore its lost ground.
Yours etc.
Name withheld on request,
Via email