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It is good to know that Meghalaya is planning to celebrate with pomp and gaiety the golden jubilee of State next year. And because it also coincides with the country’s 75 anniversary celebrations in 2022, the Government plans to organise a grand year-long celebration in the coming year. But the question that begs the answer is – what is it that we are going to celebrate. What is there to celebrate? What are the State’s achievements so far? Or to be precise, is there really anything to celebrate?
Much to the public’s dismay the Meghalaya Electricity Corporation Limited (MeECL) imbroglio brought to light the truth that the State owes the different electricity companies a huge amount of money. To be more specific MeECL owes North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited over Rs 700 crore; to ONGC Tripura Power Company Limited 166 crore and 510 crore to NTPC. In total the state owes the different power agencies a whopping 1,376 core. The people of the State have the right to question as to what are the factors that led to the Corporation reaching this embarrassing situation. But more importantly, how is the Government planning to free the state and its people from this quagmire.
The Government has also failed to run the Meghalaya Cherra Cement Limited as the company’s health is in the red. And now in order to sustain the Company, the Government is proposing to enter into a joint venture with another business entity. But what the people of the State fail to understand is why has MCCL failed when other cement companies in the other parts of the state are doing very well and they are in fact expanding their businesses.
In the education front too, the state is not doing very well. Schools particularly the District Council Lower Primary Schools which the State has taken over from the Councils are in total disarray. The buildings are in a dilapidated condition and there are not enough teachers to teach in the schools. Not only that but the school buildings are in a decrepit condition now there are not enough teachers in the school. There are LP schools with a single teacher and sadly today there are also few LP schools without any teacher at all. In Muphlang since the teacher retired and the service of the adhoc teacher has been stopped, the school exists without a teacher and in Moosakhia the school is being manned by a single teacher for many years now. And it will amaze the readers of this column that this happens in the villages which are part of the Education Minister’s constituency.
The only schools government with at least a good infrastructure or school buildings are the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan or (SSA) schools in the LP and UP section and the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) schools at the Secondary school level. Schools buildings of the schools established in the above mission are much better and some schools were able to have new school buildings because of the financial support from the Asian Development Bank. The problem is with the schools which depend solely on the State Government support which suffer the most.
Meghalaya’s plans to establish not one but two Medical colleges in the state, one in Shillong and the other in Tura, continue to be non-starters. It seems like these two important projects have been kept in the backburner and it will be many decades before they see the light of the day.
The state is not doing any better in the health front either. The newly appointed SDO (Civil) Amlarem Civil Subdivision posted on the official Facebook page of the officer’s recent visited to the Nongtalang CHC. To his surprise the officer found that outpatient service in the CHC was not functional on the day he visited the CHC. But it is rather unfortunate to note that the CHC is run by a single MBBS doctor with few Ayush doctors. The CHC in Ummulong which was inaugurated just before the last election has remained the same since then. There is neither increase in manpower nor improvement of infrastructure of the health centre. Now the Chief Minister has laid a foundation stone for upgrading the Mawryngkneng PHC to CHC. This will again be another empty promise because the Government does not have enough medical doctors to man these PHCs and CHCs. In fact if one visits any Sub-Centre, PHC or CHC one will find that there is inadequate manpower and even the buildings are either inadequate or substandard.
Before the last election the government has also upgraded the Nartiang police outpost to Police station but three years have lapsed and nothing happened except that the name has changed. As the election is approaching the people of the State will see more foundation stones being laid which will ultimately become tombstones. The people must therefore gear-up for many more rounds of rhetoric and being taking for a ride by the politicians.
It is now as clear as daylight that Meghalaya is a State that is hugely in debt and sadly it seems like all the projects that the government is implementing now are with loans from different agencies. Different MLAs (particularly the MLAs who represent rural areas) are fighting for a bite of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund cake sponsored by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. The RIDF is a loan to states from NABARD for construction of roads, bridges and other development activities in the rural areas. But here too the question is how much loan has the state been taking from RIDF?
The State has availed support from Asian Development Bank for construction of school buildings and other development activities. The public have the right to know how much of the loan has been serviced and how much remains to be paid. Earlier IFAD supported the implementation of livelihood projects in state. The State Government has also availed loan from the World Bank for other development projects and now WB even supports the state in roads construction. The Japanese funding agency Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is also supporting Government on various projects including road construction and some of the support is in the form of loans. The question is how much of the financial support from these institutions are in the form of loans? What kind of loan is being provided and how much of the loan is yet to be repaid by the Government?
For so long the different activities of the State Government were supported with doles from the central government. Unfortunately now the fund flow from Delhi is not forthcoming as it used too. Hence loans from national and international agencies are the main source of support for the State. The question is how much in debt is the State now? The State Government has already taken so much loan so how much more loan can a small state like Meghalaya absorb. The state via MeECL already owes the different power companies about rupees one thousand four hundred crore but obviously this is just the tip of the iceberg. What are the different financial agencies which the state still owes money to and how much? The question is also whether the State can continue to operate in a similar fashion and for how long? Or is the way that the State Government’s functioning sustainable?
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