The MDA Government has completed 2 years and 5 months in office. The public expects a rejig where ministers who have not performed well in their respective departments would have to cede space for others to replace them. After all, a government is not about individuals holding power but of using that power and authority to make peoples’ lives better through a more empathetic governance system where peoples’ needs are addressed and those farthest from the seat of government in Shillong can feel its impacts. If corporates use key performance indicators (KPI) to measure the efficacy of their workers especially at the higher levels where performance is linked to profits why cannot the same yardstick be adopted by governments? Considering that every government will either be voted back to power or voted out depending on its ministers’ performance it is even more crucial that some yardstick for efficiency measurement is adopted.
The MDA-02 government in its second term has taken several decisions in key sectors such as entrepreneurship among young risk-takers in various sectors, the CM Connect programme etc., there are departments that need course correction. The Environment and Forest Department is sluggish and almost blind to the destruction caused to the environment. Even the Public Works Department is a slow-moving coach where projects have longer gestation periods apart from the quality of roads remaining decrepit. The Education Department has been in the eye of the storm with several unresolved issues that need a firm handling instead of blasé statements from the minister. The Public Health Engineering Department needs to be held to account since the Jal Jeevan Mission programme has seen only pipes being laid with no water flowing through them even in peri-urban localities like Laitkor etc.
Governance in Meghalaya is Shillong-centric while the villages continue to labour under a system that barely addresses their needs. That after 50 years of statehood Meghalaya should be having schools where classes cannot be held when there’s heavy rainfall because rainwater enters the classroom is a shocking reality. It shows that MLAs representing those constituencies don’t care because they don’t speak about such lapses in the Assembly. If education was a priority for our elected representatives they would have laboured at length on the poor educational infrastructure during the Assembly sessions but that is not heard. That is because these MLAs don’t know what’s ailing the education system in their constituencies. True that the majority of MLAs from the Garo Hills are from the ruling party – the NPP and are therefore bound by their party rules not to raise such embarrassing issues in the Assembly. But unless the Chief Minister removes poor performers and brings in new faces who could deliver better, then the state is doomed to be governed by inefficient ministers whose pre-occupation is to better their own prospects even while the governed slip down the poverty line. Considering that poverty is real and ‘in your face’ in Meghalaya, the Chief Minister ought to have a minister in charge of Poverty Alleviation. Let’s see what policies this minister will come up with.