It is not a secret that Nagaland, and the Naga society, is riddled with corruption. There is an apparent rampant prevalence of individual and institutional corruptions that it has now reached to a point where even those who have been crying foul are beginning to be wary of one another. As distasteful as it might sound, it is undeniable that the ills of corruption are gradually eroding the legitimacy of those in power and their authority, compromising public institutions and the trust that they once commanded.
There is clearly an inefficient provision of public services, public offices are allegedly being bought and sold, those who are at the helms of power seem to be accumulating endless wealth while the common man is fending “tooth and nail” to get by, and progress of the state and society has become a scarce, if not invisible, commodity.
Against this backdrop, it was quite encouraging that a couple of high ranking officials of the state’s Public Works Department (NPWD) recently dared to own up to the state’s pathetic infrastructure while also admitting the prevalence of rampant corruption in their department. The officials were quoted as saying so at an annual general conference of the Association of Engineers NPWD in Kohima by two of the leading local newspapers, including Eastern Mirror. One of them would, however, later “clarify” the reports by stating that the “sharing of information seems to have been misconstrued while reporting in the newspapers”.
The officer in question was reported to have had rather candidly alleged that the state government was mindlessly making appointments to unsanctioned posts while creating 82 different working divisions with less than 40 sanctioned posts. He was quoted as saying that those moves were creating a mess in the department.
The official also spoke of a rather disturbing trend of ‘current charge’ where junior officers are supposedly allowed to supersede senior officers to hold higher posts for extended periods of time with full financial powers. Also, the official had pointed out that though there were thousands of skilled workforce such as carpenters, masons etc. in the department, the government does not sanction funds to purchase materials for them to work in their respective fields, leave alone funds for maintenance’
In addition to this, another high ranking official of the same department (PWD) had proclaimed that the state’s roads and buildings were unworthy for travel and habitation. These poor infrastructure in were attributed as roadblocks in the path of growth and development by the official. While revealing that there are more than 18,000 employees including 9,000 work charged employees in the NPWD’s various wings, the official bluntly stated the output of those employees need to be evaluated. He was quoted as saying that each of them were partly to be blamed for the state of affairs the state is in today.
These revelations clearly indicate that corruption has gripped the state and its people’s main surface infrastructure developing department by its talons, and it (PWD) is but one department amongst more than 80 others.
While one of the officials mentioned above had later issued a “clarification” to the news reports, stating that the information shared at the event was misconstrued, one is left to wonder if he was coerced to issue the rejoinder. In which case, it would also be a form of corruption, again.
Such state of affairs is a sad reflection of our moral abyss.
