Chief Minister Conrad Sangma revealed in the State Assembly recently that an amount of Rs 418 crore was sanctioned for Tura and Jowai smart town projects. In the first place the word ‘smart’ needs to be clearly defined. Shillong Smart City Project has been in the pipeline for a while now but the smartness either by way of road or internet connectivity is neither visible nor palpable. If ‘smart’ means pot-holed roads that VIPs hardly feel the jolt of because they ride SUVs, then yes Shillong is smart because the number of SUVs (smart cars) are on the rise, courtesy the growing elite, including politicians and businesspersons residing in this city. Football grounds and stadia are supposed to be part of critical infrastructure and not part of the smart city package. Shillong has had a stadium, sports complex and a convention centre at a time when it was ‘unsmart.’ Now that it has gained the status of ‘smart’ it still does not have a state of the art, swish sports complex or anything that stands out to suggest that it has graduated to being ‘smart.’ The traffic jam is one indicator of how ‘unsmart’ Shillong is and will be for a long time to come. Even New Shillong which had the possibility of being better planned and of having wider roads is already largely built up with buildings jutting on to the road – typical Shillong style.
So, Tura has already used up a whopping Rs 338.152 crore for the football stadium and the other notable PA Sangma integrated sports complex which sportspersons who attended the State Games recently didn’t have much to speak about. If everything is to be measured by money spent then it would appear that Tura is now a smart town. But do the residents experience that smartness? What’s the use of a beautified city if water supply, power and public transportation have not improved?
Interestingly, the MLA who raised the question on smart cities/towns did not really desire to seek an account of whether the projects were successfully executed. Rather he was keen that a similar project be implemented in his district headquarter. This is the bane of politics in Meghalaya. Legislators don’t really seek to hold the government to account. They only want a slice of the pie in their constituencies. Such legislators cannot see beyond their constituencies. They are not state level leaders and have no ambition or vision for the state. No wonder in its 52nd year Meghalaya is a poor shadow of what it should have been had it been guided by visionaries and statesmen.
When elections are marked by emotional appeals and voters are led by excitable songs then Meghalaya will continue to get street-smart politicians that excel in bombastic and pompous speech-making.
