Shillong, April 15: UDP legislator from Mawsynram and member of the Meghalaya State Planning Board (MSBP) Olan Sing Suin has said the board’s role is to ensure government departments implement schemes in the right direction, and not to “rehabilitate politicians.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Suin said the board meets regularly under the chairmanship of AT Mondal to review departmental programmes.
“We have called a meeting twice and reviewed different departments on the programmes they are implementing, what are the shortcomings and problems faced while implementing such projects. We give suggestions to the government on what correction to be done,” he said.
Clarifying the board’s mandate, Suin stated that it functions only as an advisory body.
“The planning board is not implementing anything, we have no intervention but only thing is we can advise the government or to the department to see what new intervention we can do,” he said.
“Consultants are engaged only by different implementing departments as the board is only an advisory committee.”
On criticism that the board exists to rehabilitate politicians, he responded, “If the board is only to rehabilitate politicians otherwise it has no meaning. Of course, we are sitting and planning what steps to be taken to see if the state and different departments are implementing all the schemes in the right direction.”
Suin also noted that experts are involved in the board’s work. “We are involved, experts also are involved in the planning board,” he added.
Commenting on traffic congestion in Shillong, Suin said there has been a marked improvement in recent months following the opening of new roads.
“We have discussed with the police and home department to decongest the traffic snarls in the whole Shillong city. Today, the traffic congestion has improved compared to the last 5-6 months,” he said.
He cited specific examples of infrastructure easing traffic flow.
“You see this road going to Anjalee petrol pump, this new road has been opened and that has helped decongest the city and the bottleneck has been removed. You see from Upper Shillong to Umshyrpi, the road now is nearly complete – so we see that the traffic congestion has improved to a great extent,” Suin said.
Sharing his personal experience, he added, “Every time when I go from here to Upper Shillong it takes one hour and now it hardly takes 15-20 minutes. I see in this one month the difference in the traffic congestion compared to four – five months before.”
