The Sixth Schedule is in the news yet again because the Autonomous District Councils have defaulted on payment of salaries to their staff and the State Government wants to pitch in by taking on the salary component of the 3 Councils. When the need for the Sixth Schedule was heatedly debated in the Constituent Assembly, a member from Assam, B Das lamented that a great liberator like Dr Ambedkar should introduce the Sixth Schedule, which disenfranchises the civil liberties of non-tribals already living within Shillong Municipality. His contention was that by granting the Sixth Schedule the educated class would have to be governed by ‘primitive people.’ But Das was not the only one antagonistic to the Sixth Schedule. It is evident therefore that the tribes were held in low esteem and are not credited with having enough intelligence to govern themselves, leave alone govern the ‘educated’ plainsmen living in Shillong city – a Municipal area to date.
To be governed by a so-called enlightened class that holds the views of B Das and his ilk and who consider the tribals as primitive and incapable of any good, tells us that the tribal leaders were right in demanding a separate state. But coming to the present debate on the Autonomous District Councils which are now so low on funds that the salaries of the Councillors and other employees are to be paid by the State Government, the question raised by some is what happens to the ‘autonomy’ of the Councils then? The fact of the matter is that while the Sixth Schedule is a virtuous act arising out of concerns raised by those who realised that tribals being a minority needed special protection or else are likely to face the fate of indigenous peoples in the present USA and elsewhere, there was no revenue model clearly worked out for its implementation. Question such as what would their resource base be if they are not to be funded by the state and central government, remain unanswered.
As always, these questions were never tackled head-on. True that the Councils are mandated to generate their own revenue. The major sources of own revenue of the Councils are Professional tax, Forests, Trading licences issued to non-tribals and Market cess. Share of royalty from the State Government accruing from major and minor minerals extracted also forms part of the revenue resource. Earlier coal alone yielded revenue to the tune of Rs 600 crore annually to the state exchequer. But when coal mining was banned in 2014, the royalty declined sharply. Often the State Government too delayed the release of funds and the central funds were scheme-centric, so there was no working capital for recurring expenses. Besides, the Councils lacked professional book-keeping thereby compounding the problem of financial management. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) detected several defects such as non-maintenance of cash books etc. In such a situation the Councils need to be pulled up and tasked to function with accountability. Else they are just a superfluous institution considering that Meghalaya is today a full-fledged state ruled by tribals themselves.
