By Patricia Mukhim
We the people would like to know the timeline
for the Shillong-Dawki road. Do we remember
when the foundation stone was laid for the road? Meghalaya is infamous for time and cost overruns in several projects including centrally funded ones.
Is anyone ever held accountable?
Our Assembly sessions are getting truncated by the year. On an average the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly sits for not more than 20-25 days a year. In these 25 days much time is taken up by legislators that are unable to communicate their points cogently or have not briefed themselves adequately to be able to make a meaningful speech without appearing apologetic. True that the Opposition has to raise pertinent questions from the Government which is in charge of the public purse but those questions must come after adequate information has been gathered from the respective departments. The questioning is not an inquisition; it is a means of seeking accountability. We the public need to know for instance the total amount allocated to the State PWD in the last MDA Government (2018-2023); where that money has been deployed? And what the outcomes are! We need to know if any contractor has been blacklisted for roads that developed craters after one heavy monsoon shower. We need to know the name of the Executive Engineer overseeing the horrible roads in East Jaintia Hills and whether the Government has taken any action against the person for giving a completion certificate for absolutely shoddy work. So far we have not heard the issue of roads being taken up in a serious enough manner that would send shivers up the spine of the PWD minister and his engineer cohorts.
We the people would like to know the timeline for the Shillong-Dawki road. Do we remember when the foundation stone was laid for the road? Meghalaya is infamous for time and cost overruns in several projects including centrally funded ones. Is anyone ever held accountable? The reason why those in the ruling party and government are never pinned down for wrongdoing is because those in the Opposition did almost the same thing; committed the same sets of improprieties when they were in the government and therefore pointing a finger at anyone now could result in the trail leading back several years into the past when things went amiss.
The second point is about the inadequate supply of drinking water in several parts of Shillong or the complete non-availability of water in some localities and their dependence on water tankers for their water needs. However, this is not to be Shillong-centric. Travelling to distant villages in Meghalaya informs us that water supply to every home is still work in progress and one wonders if the Jal Jeevan Mission in Meghalaya can be completed before December 2023 because by then the central government will be breathing down the neck of the State Government. After all this is a master-strategy for BJP to win rural voters in the 2024 elections.
True that the issue of upgradation of NEIGRIHMS to an AIIMS equivalent was taken up by Congress legislator Ronnie Lyngdoh and he has touched upon a sore point. NEIGRIHMS has been left to fall by the wayside with so many doctors having left for greener pastures. We ought to be grateful to the ones who are sticking on and continuing to offer their services despite the many pitfalls and the non-availability of certain life-saving equipment. Many a patient has complained that the emergency care at NEIGRIHMS is non-existent. If one were to fall ill beyond the OPD hours and if one is not a VIP then one has had it. Some of these complaints unfortunately don’t reach the Director and as is our wont we don’t pursue these matters to their logical end. We outsource them to the dozen or so pressure groups waiting for an issue to fall into their laps so they can occasionally flex their muscles.
The Meghalaya High Court has been our saving grace taking up issues that are within the realm of the executive such as the horrendous traffic jams in this blighted city and the atrocious roads in East Jaintia Hills which connect to the Barak Valley in Assam. The Government needs to find out who the last contractors of the road were. True that the National Highway 6 is not executed by the State Government but considering that the State Chief Minister travels to Delhi every weekend why does he not bring this matter to the Surface Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari? In Nagaland when RN Ravi was Governor, he would regularly supervise the Dimapur-Kohima highway and sort out matters related to delays due to land acquisition with Gadkari. And Gadkari always responded positively. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma needs to realise that a NH6 is a link highway but large tracts of the highway passes through Meghalaya.
The case of NEIGRIHMS is pretty much the same. While NEIGRIHMS serves the entire region, it is located in Meghalaya and therefore the onus is on the Chief Minister of Meghalaya to push the Union Health Ministry for its improvement into an institution of excellence. But why only the CM? Other MLAs and the State Health Minister too can push for better, more efficient departments and doctors, better nursing care and enough funds to cater to the growing needs of patients that are growing by the day.
It is a sad commentary on our legislators but most of them are very constituency-centric. Very few rise above their constituencies to be state leaders. I recall the Late PG Marbaniang who as Speaker berated a few of his MLA colleagues for raising issues only pertaining to their constituencies. “When will you graduate into a state leader?” Marbaniang would literally roar. Alas! Other than the CM, no other MLA has risen to the ranks of a State leader and I say this because of one important reason. When Chief Minister Conrad Sangma declared to the World Bank honchos at a meeting in Meghalaya House Delhi in May 2023 that Meghalaya is ready to become a 10 billion dollar economy, none of the MLAs have asked him to qualify his statement and to point out the road-map to this gallant trajectory. Sangma laid out his plans to the World Bank saying that one key landmark initiative is Meghalaya Enterprise Architecture Project (MeghEA) which apparently is the first of its kind in any state. MeghEA allows for an e-proposal system which won an award at the UN-WSIS. In a democracy it is important for the last person in the village to know what all this means. Frankly speaking most of us would not know the implication of MeghEA and who the critical stakeholders are. Should this not have been discussed in the Assembly?
The Chief Minister informed the World Bank that there are currently 12 externally aided projects with another 11 in the pipeline. These projects are worth over Rs 10,000 crores of external funding and over Rs 2400 crore is a loan from the World Bank. World Bank projects include the Meghalaya Integrated Transport Project (MITP), Meghalaya Community-led Landscape Management Project (CLLMP), Meghalaya Health Systems Strengthening Project (MHSSP), Meghalaya Programme for Adolescent Well-being, Employment and Resilience (EMPOWER). We are dealing with a lot of acronyms here and what bothers me as a citizen of this state is (1) Is the World Bank going to do an independent monitoring and audit to see how the projects are implemented (2) How are the projects working on the ground? (3) We have heard of CLLMP for a while now. Can the Government show us the progress of this project? And which are the target districts for the EMPOWER scheme? All the above needed to be discussed threadbare in the Assembly since the public are the real stakeholders and the Government an implementer.
The above is the problem with Meghalaya. We don’t have MLAs that have the calibre to grill the suave CM and his SMART team (nearly every scheme is named Smart) and to get them to tell us the outcomes of these schemes every 6 months. Let’s not forget that a loan must be repaid. Its not a freebie from the World Bank. And if the above schemes are implemented, I am curious to know how we can become a 10 billion dollar economy. Mr Chief Minister, would you care to give us a brief on this? Please call a press conference of senior journalists. I promise to be all ears!