Shillong, June 20: Capacity building over the last decade in Meghalaya has reduced dependence on outside experts to run externally aided projects (EAPs), Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said on Saturday.
Local professionals now handle now most of the consultancy work in EAPs, Sangma told reporters after the concluding session of a two-day seminar on ‘Leveraging Externally Aided Projects in the North East’.
Mentioning that the government had to bring people from outside for most of the EAP work in the beginning, Sangma said, “Today, almost 90 percent are people from the state. They have been trained, the capacity has been built.”
“Now most of the people who are working in these externally aided projects, except maybe a few key positions, the general mass and overall numbers are very much local people,” he said.
He attributed the state’s project momentum to sustained central investment in the Northeast over the past 12 years.
“If we have really seen any kind of real investment and development it has only taken place in the past 12 years. It is only after the Prime Minister took charge… there was a special focus on the North East like never before,” Sangma said.
The CM explained that schemes like SASCI and EAPs are reform-linked and subject to global standards.
“SASCI comes with reforms that you have to do… You just cannot get the money just because you ask for it. You have to prove that you are worth receiving that money,” he said.
Sangma added that training locals to meet international benchmarks set by multilateral agencies was key.
“That is what madam was mentioning that we need experts, we need expertise to come in and improve it and that is where works of consultants are coming in,” he said, referring to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who was present during a press interaction.
The Chief Minister said this local expertise will help Meghalaya absorb central schemes better and implement projects with greater efficiency going forward.
