‘Good Governance Day’ and Manipur
- Imphal Times Editorial :: December 27 2017 -

Observing ‘Good Governance Day’ is yet another plus point of the Narendra Modi Government even though there are some criticism as the day coincides with Christmas Day.

It reminds those in the government on how important it is for the political party to make sure that the country marches forward.

India being a quasi federal structures rely its good governance to the performance of the government in each states.

Accountability of those in power in the state government is a factor that determines the stature of the governance.

When a state fails to prove things it is doing to achieve the goal of observing the Good Governance Day, then there is no doubt that the government have no respect for former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as the Narendra Mobi Government started observing the day as a mark of respect to the leader after he was awarded Bharat Ratna by the president of India.

Mr. Vajpayee now 94 plus, is the first BJP Prime Minister of the country and Good Governance is the dream project of BJP and is designed after another BJP led government under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.

BJP Manipur Pradesh yesterday observed the ‘Good Governance Day’ at its Party Head Quarter here in Imphal. Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, Works Minister Th. Bishwajit and many other Ministers, MLAs, and functionaries of the BJP Manipur Pradesh took part in the observance function.

While observing the good governance day here in the state of Manipur, those in the power including chief minister himself seem to have forgotten that the greatest challenge of good governance is ‘corruption’.

Soon after Nongthombam Biren Singh installed his cabinet colleague, he showed dead serious about eradicating corruption and to make sure that corruption is wipe out of the state his government set up Anti Corruption Cell (ACC), a small but effective measures to control corruption of any form (as stated) by medium class employees.

Whereas, this ACC will be able to root out corruption at higher ups is still a matter still question by many.

State government is empowered to establish unit to check corruption, but setting up of a corruption cell is not enough to control level of corruption.

There are certain statutory bodies as well as government departments which are incorporated with the checking of the corruption, already existed in the state and there are also others which the state government is yet to establish for fighting corruption.

Lokayukta Bill, 2011 which was passed by the state assembly in December 2017 still is not existed in the state of Manipur.

Manipur Information Commission (MIC) is another statutory body which helps the public in getting information on what the government departments are doing.

This MIC is presently run by a Chief Information Commissioner after the state Information Commissioner retired in March, 2013.

As per the guideline, the government should appoint 10 members for effective implementation of the Right to Information Act.

Violation of Human Rights is also another form of corruption and the state government still has not revived the Manipur Human Rights Commission.

State government’s own Vigilance Department is more like a toothless tiger with government not giving much important to it.

Systematic study of the kind of corruption that the government need to tackle is the need of the hour if it feels and desire that corruption should be root out from the soil of the state.

But it is not possible to root out all form of corruption at one go.

The nation needs to reform the electoral practice for wiping out the Political corruption.

However, setting up and make every tools for checking corruption functional will definitely check the level administrative corruption and the professional corruption.

There are certain characteristics of good governance as according to the United Nations Development Programme.

As per the UNDP report of 1997, under Government for Sustainable Development there are eight characteristic of good governance.

Of those, Consensus Orientation by the government is somewhat successful by the Chief Minister N. Biren Singh led government.

When transparency and accountability is still a far away dream, it is not surprising to imagine on why the ‘Good Governance Day’ is observed with much fan fare by the BJP Manipur Pradesh which is leading the government in the state.

A person can be fool for some time but he or she cannot be fooled all the time.