Williamnagar, 19th of September: The state of development has been the reflection of any growing state or region. By that count, the district of East Garo Hills, has been stuck in the doldrums of a vegetative state for quite some time. While road communication is being worked on mainly due to the presence of two national highways within the region, the state of village development is another thing altogether. All this happens as militant group upon militant group fire demand notes to all and sundry.
The DC of East Garo Hills, V K Mantri spoke of the problems he has been facing in trying to get village level schemes to benefit the people of the region. He opined that misappropriation at the village level was to an extent due to the gamut of demand notes served to the Village Employment Council (VEC) secretaries and presidents. Of the 950 odd VECs he has under him, roughly about 90% of them have had to cough up money to pay to militant groups!
Mantri said, “Most of the VEC presidents and Secretaries have been served notes, mainly from GNLA and have been asked to pay. The problem is that the security scenario in the region is scary and these people have had to pay to keep themselves and their families alive. They do not have money that they can pay from their pockets and they end up using funds meant for village level development to pay the group. This has been the case in most scenarios of East Garo Hills and complaints have been piling up in all VECs with members stating their rightful employment guarantee money is being taken away”.
The poor rural connectivity in the region has been hampering police work as militants use these constraints to their advantage. Even Williamnagar, the district headquarter is not connected properly between two sides of the town. Police operations have to be on foot rather than armoured vehicles, which make the proposition risky. While the number of killings may have decreased, the whims of the militants still prevail due to infrastructure issues and from the looks of it; things are unlikely to change in the coming years unless militancy is rooted out completely. The Songsak Block Development office was in fact served with a demand note to the tune of 80 lakhs. Most of the office goers stopped going to the office as a result and development within the block was stalled. (SP News)
