This is the first government that has tried its hand at innovative strategies to take governance closer to the people. CM Connect as the name suggests is an attempt by Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma to listen first hand to peoples’ grievances. This takes him to distant villages where people are able to speak to the Chief Minister on a one on one basis which is something that could not have been thought of in the past. Although India is a democracy, once elected the MLA who becomes a minister moves around in a stultified domain away from the people who elected him/her. Ministers travel in speed and inside vehicles with tinted glasses for security reasons. This leaves them blind to the condition of the roads and they don’t get to observe the ground realities in the course of their travels. Also what has happened to democracy in India is that ministers are treated like royalty and they in turn dole out their patronage in the form of doles. The recipients of such doles then become beholden to the MLA/minister for as long as he/she sits on that chair. In a scenario where the voting public has become poorer by the day and living on doles would they dare point out governance anomalies? They would not like to rock the boat by airing their grievances publicly. This is the reason why several people who air their views on governance failures through letters to the editor prefer to remain anonymous. This in itself is an indicator that we are not a fully functioning democracy where people understand the power of their votes and are not beholden to any elected representative.
CM Connect has seen people drawing the attention of the Chief Minister to several issues such as the failure of district and block level officials in addressing their grievances. And those concerns are not personal. They include the poor quality of roads; irregular water supply or no water supply at all despite the much touted JJM scheme. Obviously, the CM Connect scheme would not be popular with the officials at the Block levels because now they can be hauled up for non-performance or tardy implementation of schemes which is more the rule than the exception. The CM Connect strategy is to cut through the red tape and bureaucratic hurdles which has been the bane of governance in this country and which also sets back development by several decades. Add to that corruption that afflicts every level of governance and you have a perfect recipe for the political class to be defeated in the forthcoming election. There are several occasions when decisions on implementation of certain schemes have been taken by ministers but between the signing of the files and their actual implementation is a yawning gap. It is important for people to take an active part in the CM Connect scheme and for all villages and blocks to demand that the CM come and hear their grievances and their pain points. This is the only way to improve governance.
