Meghalaya is suffering from the shortsightedness of its politicians, who are only ever concerned with getting elected and then holding onto their seat, retired IAS officer Toki Blah has told Highland Post.
“Without a vision you are fighting elections just to win and concentrating only on the winibility factor, which has become an eyesore,” he said recently.
Stressing on the need to have a thinktank for the state, Blah said, “We need people who can develop the state in five years, 10 years and so on and not those who do everything just to win elections with no vision at all.”
A small state like Meghalaya should be able to have political parties come together with the sole vision of developing the economy and creating a roadmap that will make that possible, he said.
Blah does not think much of the State Planning Board now as its appointees are chosen by the party in power for their loyalty rather than their ability.
“A state planning board needs people with vision who can think and advise the government and the government needs to listen,” he said, adding that the economic development council during the time of former Chief Minister BB Lyngdoh was better as all parties came together in a group to plan for the economic development of the state.
This lack of planning has a profound impact on Meghalaya in other ways, the ex-civil servant opined, as without a vision there cannot be proper government and corruption becomes inevitable. He was also critical of the largescale entrance of businessmen into politics, saying their sole desire is to win and not to govern.
Blah also called for the scrapping of the MLA scheme, wherein legislators are allocated crores of rupees to spend on their local constituencies. The funds should, instead, be channeled through government departments with supervisory oversight into how they are spent, he said.
