SHILLONG, March 8: The National People’s Party-led MDA Government has completed four years in office but the tenure has been riddled with allegations of massive corruption in most of the departments, scams in the power sector, irregularities related to mining and transportation of coal, law-and-order lapses and controversial appointments.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, however, displayed an air of nonchalance as he staunchly defended the MDA, claiming that his government has been transparent since it has instituted independent inquiries into almost every single allegation leveled against them.
“If the government had anything not to be transparent about, we would not have allowed independent inquiries,” Sangma said on Tuesday while reacting to a query on whether his government has been able to provide a clean and transparent government amid a growing diatribe over the corruption issue.
The CM pointed out that whenever a coalition partner mentioned about any issue or whenever the government got a hint that people wanted transparency, the MDA set up a judicial inquiry to look into the allegations.
“Every government faces challenges and opposition but we ordered judicial inquiries into almost every issue that was raised,” he added.
While he was upbeat about his government providing transparency, Sangma refused to comment on the suo motu cognizance taken by the High Court of Meghalaya on the issue of rampant illegal mining and transportation coal, saying the matter was sub-judice.
Asked about the high dropout rate in Meghalaya, Sangma admitted that it was a matter of concern for his government. “There are multiple factors that lead to dropouts. Students don’t have the opportunity to study at the higher secondary or college level because of the lesser number of higher institutes,” he said.
He said that the government is trying to work on the youth by infusing confidence among the youth through specific programmes. “Almost 40,000 youths will be targeted under the programmes to give them the ability to take up higher challenges,” he said.
Earlier, the chief minister recalled that the government had faced several challenges in its four-year journey, prominent among them being the COVID-19 pandemic which hit the entire globe. He stated that in spite of the challenges, the government was able to initiate a number of programmes for the youth and women, besides taking up development activities and launching infrastructural projects across the state.
He informed that in several sectors like PMGSY and JJM or even the overall spending, Meghalaya’s performance has drastically improved. He specifically mentioned that the state’s spending has increased by 33% from Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 15,000 crore.
The CM, however, did not speak on the progress made into the independent inquiries being conducted into the irregularities in the Power department and the rice scam. In addition, a judicial inquiry into the death of former HNLC leader, Cheristerfield Thangkhiew in a police raid in August last year is yet to complete its task.