After much nudging by the High Court and the serene Umiam Lake now being termed the city’s septic tank the State Government seems at least outwardly and for public effect trying to do something with its water bodies. Now Meghalaya is never short on experts and consultants on every issue under the sun. Interestingly the River Rejuvenation Committee (RRC) was formed way back in 2019 but no cation has been visible since then. So which river was rejuvenated between 2019 and 2022? On the face of it these Government-led bodies with fancy names have never delivered much in Meghalaya and the reason is because communities are never involved in the processes. If the communities around the water bodies are turning them into garbage dumps, free for all car washes, septic tank outlets and worse even places for discarding dead animals and syringes used by drug pushers among others then that community has to come forward to vow not to violate these water bodies. A Government committee, expert or otherwise is a top-down way of addressing issues and it has never worked and will not work in the future too.
After two years the ‘expert’ committee is only now in the process of formulating the action plan for restoring polluted water bodies. The expert committee has given ten days’ time to the districts which ostensibly submitted distorted figures about water bodies. According to the list prepared by respective district administrations there are 10,201 water bodies across the state. It is noteworthy that the seven rivers mentioned namely the Umkhrah, Umshyrpi, Kyrhokhla, Nongbah, Umtrew, Lukha and Myntdu are also the most polluted rivers. The RRC was formed as per the directives of the National Green Tribunal. But Meghalaya has a history of repeatedly violating the NGT orders.
In 2014 the NGT banned rat hole mining of coal and ordered the state to take stock of the coal already mined and to transport that vide a transparent policy. Interestingly the transportation of the coal assessed then has not been completed eight years hence and it continues to be transported even today. So, what’s the worth of the NGT directive if monitoring is so weak? The NGT can only order the state to do certain things which actually are the within the ambit of state governance. To keep the rivers clean is the constitutional brief of the state. But the state of Meghalaya has repeatedly failed to live up to its constitutional duties for which the NGT steps in every now and again but without much success. It is rightly observed that when the state does not want to resolve an issue it forms a committee which is nothing but a cul-de-sac with an entrance but no exit.
