A remarkable character streak of the former ANVC combatant, now MDC, Garo Hills, Bernard Marak is his ill-fitting belligerence. He demands that the Garo Hills District Council be more empowered than it is today by transferring 13 state departments to the Council. If this is what the GHADC wants they should write to the Centre asking for implementation of the Panchayati Raj Act because all the demands made, fall under the purview of that Act and not under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. Direct funding too is a subject under the Panchayati Raj and not under the District Councils, which since their creation never had a revenue model. They depended on funds released by the state government from time to time and their only internal generation is from fees accruing from trade license applicants, professional taxes, transportation of forest products and toll gates. Sometimes Marak forgets that he represents a constituency and not just the surrendered ANVC cadres. Having surrendered because there was no further option for most of the cadres as they were being hunted down by the law enforcers, they had to come overground and sign the tripartite deal with the Central and State Government. This does not mean an easy exit from sections of the law that the ANVC cadres had violated during their tenure in the ‘jungles,’ which often were homes of hapless people where they took shelter at gun-point.
As far as strengthening the traditional system of governance is concerned the fact is these institutions have no resources other than the small token fees charged from the residents of the respective villages. The point of debate is whether “traditional institutions” are equal to the task of solving the problems of the 21st century in their present form. Governance whether at the state or the village level requires certain expertise and those holding office should be educated and able to understand the demands of modern governance, apart from having the human resources to carry out those functions. Above all, traditional institutions should be open to elections as against selection. What good governance demands is also strict accountability in the use of public money. In Meghalaya, the syiems (chieftains, not kings), collect taxes from markets etc., but feel they are not duty bound to give an account of their spending via the Right to Information route. This is not acceptable because every penny of public money should be invested to improve governance to the last mile where governments often do not reach.
Bernard Marak is right in pointing at the fund mismanagement in the GHADC and this should be followed up in the right spirit. The Executive Committee is accountable to the public and no Chief Executive Member (CEM) or Executive Member (EM) can be a law unto himself. Unfortunately, the GHADC has faltered regularly. Respective Executive Councils in all the ADCs have appointed more staff than they need, many being political appointees. The ADCs have then ended up not paying staff salary regularly. Who will audit the ADCs if they don’t care about the CAG reports? Can they blame anyone for being starved of funds?
