Editor,
Through your esteemed paper, I would like to express my gratitude to the Health Department for their endless efforts especially during this pandemic. Calls had been coming in from them just a few hours after I was tested positive for Covid 19. Symptoms were mild so I was in home isolation. It was on the second day that they visited me and provided me with an Isolation Kit which consisted of an Oximeter which costs 3999, a thermometer which was Rs 355, masks and a sanitizer – all for free! They never failed to call me every day, sometimes thrice a day till the end of my quarantine period closely monitoring my health. The concerned people were very cordial and never failed to wish me a speedy recovery. Strange that under such circumstances, one of the callers on the last day turned out to be an acquaintance from college who I had not met in more than a decade. It felt wonderful but most of all, I would like to say THANK YOU to all of you for the encouraging words and for keeping all of us afloat.
Yours etc.
D. Lyngdoh,
Vie email
No bureaucrat is an island
Editor,
I take this opportunity to write here regarding my experiences in working with a particular official within the Meghalaya Government. As I am under their immediate supervision I must speak as an anonymous source. In addition, rules of service won’t allow me to speak out openly. With this in mind, I will begin.
When it comes to the current crop of IAS officers there is no one who has been given more importance and favour than Dr Vijay Kumar Damera. A little while ago his name made the rounds because of some allegations levied against him and his wife. Frankly those allegations as they appeared in your esteemed newspaper were not warranted and were easily dismissed by the officials. Its accusations of favouritism by Dr Vijay towards his own wife’s firm Dalberg did not match with the actual sequence of events as they played out. However we must raise some objections regarding the manner in which Dr Vijay works. All of us in his staff have a very clear idea about how many responsibilities he has on his shoulders. However it is a disservice to the government and state to heap so much power onto one mere mortal. Oftentimes his subordinates have to wait for hours before he can see us. On top of that he might not remember the work which we were assigned to carry out. This is disheartening to say the very least. The person is too busy that he needs to refresh all the time. It is not smart to heap so much work onto this one person. Why can’t other IAS officers be trusted with his departments? There is a very clear indication that Dr Vijay is the favoured ally of the CM.
The other worrying thing which we must raise is how Dr Vijay manages his departments. In effect he is the department. Because of his positive position in the eyes of the political masters he has taken tremendous liberties in consolidating power in his hands. Case in point Planning and Finance departments are both headed by Dr Vijay and since this is the case he has channelled vital resources into projects which he has felt most strongly about – Tourism for instance – which might not be in the best interests of the majority of the population. He has also mostly directed funding away from the Finance department and they receive second hand knowledge after the needs of Meghalaya Basin Development Agency (MBDA) – which he heads – have been tended to first.
MBDA might I remind the reader is an exclusively bureaucratic agency with no political interference. While this makes it an attractive prospect it must be remembered that it is opaque and without any known levers of accountability, a fact which numerous MLAs have highlighted during Assembly sessions. MBDA and its subsidiaries today function as a parallel government oftentimes surpassing its democratically appointed counterpart in significance. However the main point here is how successful it has been in its work and how beneficial it has been to the population of the state. In this last instance, we would have to say that the jury is still out on that.
Dr Vijay is energetic, youthful and highly competent. He is also a likable person on occasions. While it is true that most bureaucrats are lackadaisical, it would be a dangerous mistake to entrust complete control onto one person. His recent attempts at creating a private Tourism company, namely Meghalayan Age Limited (MAL) is a bold move but it is fast becoming a parallel PWD but with no real mechanisms for transparency again. Positions are created on the fly and appointments are just done on the spot with no known criteria. MBDA is also overstretching itself dangerously into the fields of other departments, trying to do their work as well. This has led to a situation whereby the agency no sooner starts one project than it immediately seeks funding for another new one. The result has been numerous incomplete projects with no real substantial success with any of them.
Dr Vijay seems set on reinventing the idea of what it means to be a bureaucrat. He is trying to initiate a number of glamourous projects in Tourism and Entrepreneurship but the truth is that being an official should not be glamourous at all. It is a boring and oftentimes thankless job but many good bureaucrats work in their quiet and nondescript ways within various departments. Recently Dr Vijay was given the Agriculture portfolio which will be a real test of his abilities. Will the department thrive or will it flounder under his watch? And if it does fail, what will happen to the thousands who depend on it directly? The thought is nerve wracking . We hope that by stating these facts it would serve as a positive criticism for Dr Vijay to introspect and we hope he takes it in stride as he does course correction.
Yours etc.,
Name withheld on request
Via email