Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Friday admitted that there is no infrastructure available or manpower for the newly created community and rural development (C&RD) blocks and civil sub-divisions (CSDs). However, the motto is to bring administration closer to the people.
Talking to media at the side line of a programme in Shillong, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said, there is a huge financial implication for the creation of the C&RD blocks and civil sub-divisions.
“There will be financial implications for the C&RD blocks, the salary implication will be around Rs 2 crores and sub divisions also almost same plus minus depending on the total number of manpower that we will ultimately put in there, so these are implications that are there,” CM Sangma told reporters.
The opposition TMC has alleged that the Meghalaya Government is in a spree to inaugurate C&RD blocks and civil sub-divisions in the state; however, most of these are still on papers with lack of infrastructure and manpower.
Asked about the infrastructure, the CM said, “Ofcourse we have to put up buildings and infrastructures which will be something that will be phased out in the long run and we will not have immediate impact on it but obviously we have to create the civil sub division buildings. As we move along we will create the infrastructure.”
Asked about manpower, he added, “We will recruit people and we will ensure that we appoint them.”
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister also rubbish the Leader of Opposition’s statement sand said it is sad that the Leader of Opposition Mukul Sangma is seeing good development being given to the people as a political gimmick and that it is very unfair to the people of those areas where blocks and sub-divisions have been given.
Speaking to reporters, Conrad said that the main objective of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government to create new community and rural development (C&RD) blocks and civil sub-divisions (CSDs) is to bring administration closer to the people.
“If only the LO had spoken to those people and realized their pain and the challenges they faced he will come to know that they are very happy with this development. Maybe when he was chief minister for 8 years he could have given them those blocks but I guess he did not that time want to do anything for those people,” he said.
“But then we have realized those people are facing a lot of challenges and they have to travel for hours and hours to reach to the administrative headquarters to be able to get just basic services like certificates and other block services or subdivision services – this is towards our goal and our endeavor and our decision to ensure we take administration closer to the people and it is going in that line itself,” the chief minister said.
He said, “Therefore, it is improper to look at this as a political stance but it should be seen that development is reaching to the grass root people. The fact that development is getting closer to the people and administration is getting closer to the people is something that I think should not be criticized at all.”
He also asked the opposition to go and ask people who are living in Patharkhmah, Namdong, Rambrai, Rongjeng and others on the kind of challenges they faced just to get basic services that the government provides.
“Hence, those who criticize this are people who don’t understand the pain that the common citizens go through. And hence, this is going in line with the stand of the government that we wanted to take administration closer to the people and I am sure that the people of those areas where these developments have gone I am sure they will realize its benefits and understand that this will make a huge difference in their lives,” the chief minister said.