The claim by the former Director Health Services (DHS) who is now a candidate of the United Democratic Party (UDP) from North Shillong that the actual expenses on Covid which he described as having ‘come as a hurricane and leaving like a calm breeze’ also left the state poorer by Rs 816 crores. The DHS claims the amount actually expended was Rs 248 crores. The Health Minister on the floor of the House said the Covid expenditure was a whopping Rs 816 crores. The question now is where has the amount of Rs 568 crore disappeared? That this matter was tabled in the Assembly and there was no uproar reveals the stark reality that the MLAs who are supposed to hold the government to account don’t really do their homework. It was incumbent that the MLAs in the Opposition, which is mainly the TMC should have raised hell on this huge expenditure and asked for a detailed discussion on the matter. The MDA Government had earlier claimed that it had spent a considerable sum on infrastructure like the Covid Step-down facility at the New Shillong Township and a similar infra near the Ganesh Das hospital.
An inspection of this site found that it was an unused facility. But the size of the infrastructure did not warrant such a huge expenditure. Rs 248 crore in itself would have covered a lot of ground and paid for the anti-Covid injections and the medical expenditure of Covid patients that could not pay for their treatment. The number of people who received the first dose stood at 13,17,407 (34%, the lowest in the country; the second dose 9,72,056 (25%) and the Precaution dose was lowest at 44,815 (1.17%). What this informs is that more than half the population of Meghalaya was unvaccinated even with the first dose and about 75% did not get their second dose. The less we speak about the precautionary dose the better. So, there is a shroud of secrecy surrounding the Covid expenditure. Unless some RTI activist tries to dig at the truth of the matter this too will disappear from the radar of public attention.
The issue is about public accountability which is sorely lacking in Meghalaya. Will the sitting MLAs explain why they did not raise this matter in the Assembly? After all, an excess expenditure of over Rs 500 crore means a huge amount of public money that is unaccounted for. Will this issue come up for discussion during the campaign period? Knowing Meghalaya, this issue will be lost in the cacophony of noises and finger pointing that is characteristic of campaigns here that skim over critical issues. Perhaps only candidates from KAM and VPP actually have the capacity to go deep into the matter and dig up the truth about the Covid expenses. An RTI on this is in order!
