By Patricia Mukhim
The District Councils have a particular mandate which should not intrude into the realm of the State Government, simply because the Councils don’t have the financial or administrative resources to do so. There are many examples of how the Councils have floundered in the past such as in running primary schools in the Sixth Schedule areas of the state. The Councils defaulted in payment of salaries to primary school teachers resulting in them striking work at great cost to the students. There was a demand from primary school teachers that the state government should take over the administration of primary schools and that finally happened in 1994.
The Sixth Schedule says the Councils can make laws on certain specified matters like land, forests, canal water, shifting cultivation, village administration, inheritance of property, marriage and divorce, social customs and so on. But all such laws require the assent of the governor.
On land, forests and rivers there are several contentious issues that the Councils should be delving into and be worried about as they directly impinge on the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous tribes of Meghalaya. The issue of land and landlessness of people in rural Meghalaya is actually very serious but surprisingly this issue has never been discussed either in the State Assembly or the District Councils. Ever since the Socio-Economic Caste Census came up with its findings in 2011 stating that nearly 76% of rural Meghalaya is landless, one expected the State Government and the District Councils to be perturbed by the findings and that they would therefore ensure that a cadastral survey was carried out to ascertain the veracity of the socio-economic census report and to know for sure the extent of land alienation and landlessness in Meghalaya. Land is intrinsically linked to culture, tradition and customary practices. Without land we are no longer a cohesive tribal entity because it means we are not able to protect the tribal population from exploitation by modern means of production.
The Councils have failed miserably to even safeguard the forests under their jurisdiction. Instead, the Councils see forests only as a resource from where they can earn their revenue. And that revenue accrues when forests are perceived as ‘trees’ which are to be felled and turned to timber. Hence the Councils actually earn their revenues from cutting down forests, not in conserving them. I wonder why this aspect has not been given due attention to by the State Forest Department whose mandate it is to conserve forests and wildlife. It is convenient for the Department to say they have jurisdiction over only 4-5% of reserved forests in the State. If it is the constitutional mandate of the State Environment and Forest Department to prevent deforestation should it turn a blind eye when that deforestation happens outside the reserved forests? Does the Indian Constitution not supersede the Sixth Schedule?
Let’s come to rivers and their sources. These two have not been taken care of by the District Councils although these fall within their purview. They tried a one-off venture to clean the Wah Umkhrah and abandoned it immediately afterwards because for the Council everything revolves around funds (read money). They won’t take a step without money. Actually, if they really care about the rivers and the environment they would have activated the Dorbar Shnong and the residents under each Dorbar to ensure that rivers do not become dumping ground for garbage. But we have never heard the District Council doing any awareness campaign on the need to prevent large scale pollution of rivers in the entire state. They are responsible even for the toxicity caused to the rivers in Jaintia Hills on account of the sulphuric acid draining out from the coal mines and coal dumps. But so far none of the Councils have taken up with any seriousness this onslaught into our lifeline – the rivers of the state many of which have now receded and stopped flowing with the same intensity.
This now brings me to an important issue which the District Councils now suddenly want to wield their power over, and that is the taking over of the mandate for issuance of building permission under the Building Bye-laws – a subject which they are not competent to administer on because they don’t have the wherewithal for it. Does the Council have structural engineers that can assess the soil engineers are the mandate of the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA). Apart from a whole host of requirements to fulfil the person who wants to construct a house has to get a structural sufficiency certificate signed by the registered engineer / agency and the owner jointly to the effect that the building is safe against various loads, forces and effects including due to natural disasters, such as, earthquake, landslides, cyclones, floods etc., as per National Building Code 2016 and other relevant Codes. The registered engineer / agency shall also have the details to substantiate his design for high rise buildings / projects, special buildings having covered area above 500 sqm. The building bye laws in a seismic zone like ours also means that the structural engineers prescribe the required strength of the rods and steel structures to be used which can take the weight of the buildings.
The question that arises is why do the Councils want control over this aspect of administration? The obvious answer is that the Councils see this as an opportunity for revenue generation. What is feared is that the rules will be bent according to the demands of the building owner based on what the person can pay. It’s not that MUDA is not without its flaws but we can imagine the encroachments on the main roads and other violations that will follow. In fact in the past every house was built leaving enough space for biodegradable kitchen waste. Now even that waste has to be discarded as wet garbage collected by garbage trucks across the city and emptied at Marten. There are houses that discharge their latrines into rivers. How did this happen? Any answers? Has anyone been punished for allowing such a nuisance? No! And such violations might spiral under the ADCs. The single point here is that the ADCs do not have the capacity to do due diligence before issuing building permissions. Period.
Interestingly, the 125th Amendment Bill that is still pending seeks to increase the financial and executive powers of the ADCs in the Sixth Schedule areas of the north eastern region. The amendments provide for elected village municipal councils, ensuring democracy at the grassroot level.
The village councils are to be empowered to prepare plans for economic development and social justice including those related to agriculture, land improvement, implementation of land reforms, minor irrigation, water management, animal husbandry, rural electrification, small scale industries and social forestry. The Finance Commission will be mandated to recommend devolution of financial resources to them. At the moment the Autonomous Councils depend on grants from Central ministries and the State government for specific projects.
What is progressive about the amendment is that at least one-third of the seats will be reserved for women in the village and municipal councils in the Sixth Schedule areas of Assam, Mizoram and Tripura after the amendment is approved. Meghalaya is exempted perhaps because we don’t yet have elected village and municipal councils and we are still resisting this move even when we know that having elected bodies will ensure better grassroots governance and better access to central funds. This is what happens when people understand governance as an opportunity to appropriate power and not for devolving power to the lowest strata of governance. This will be Meghalaya’s eternal plight.