Functioning of Autonomous District Council in Meghalaya is the burning question of the day. However, any person who-wants to understand the problem by asking the functionaries of District Councils of Meghalaya about its status may get a very rosy picture. From the available detailed-recorded account of the functioning of District Councils one might have an idea that District Council has been functioning as well as any other existing local government in the country. But this seems to me paradoxical as the empirical findings show that the existing District Council in Meghalaya is not at all fulfilling the local needs; rather it seems to have been created to fulfil the interest of a few affluent people and not for the welfare or benefit of the mass as pointed out by a good number of traditional Khasi Chiefs. In fact it is an institution which has created more factional conflicts and cleavages within the Khasi Society today. Hence, the creation of District Council is a controversial issue in Meghalaya. Much analysis is done and presented in the text. The study presents a number of recommendations and suggestions to make District Council a true representative local government by resolving the disputes and conflicts with the grass root level institutions and discontentment of the true functionaries at the grass root level.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sujit Kumar Dutta
Sujit Kumar Dutta (b. 1953) obtained his B.Sc. degree from Calcutta University, M.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong and Ph.D. in Sociology from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Post-doctoral from Centre D'etudes de L'asie du sud, EHESS, Paris. He has been working with teh National Institute of Rural Development since 1988. He has been visiting scholars during 1991 to 1993 to the following Universities/institutes: Graduate Institute of International Studies and Institute of Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland; London School of Economics, Institute of Development Studies. England; and University of East Anglia, England; Sydney-Sussex Collage, Cambridge; Princeton University, USA. In 2002 and 2004 was a visiting scholar in Regional Community Forestry Training Centre, Kasetsart University, Bangkok and Maison Des Sciences De L'Home, Paris. France, under Indo-French exchange programme respectively. He worked as Director, State Institute of Rural Development, Government of West Bengal, during September 1993-December 1994 on deputations and rejoined NIRD in December 1994 as Dy. Director (Associate Prodessor), NIRD, North Eastern Regional Centre. During August 2003-July 6, 2005 he worked as Professor and PGP (Chairman) IBAT School of Management and Prof. and Head, Centre For Social Development. Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology-Deemed University, Bhubaneswar on deputation. Apart from contributing articles to various journals of national and international repute, the author has completed 15 projects and two books (1) The Functioning of Autonomous District Councils in Meghalaya, and (2) Empowering Rural Women. The author's main areas of interests are: Social Stratification and Inequality, Rural Development and Agrarian Studies, Problems of Underdevelopment, Ethnicity and Employment, Decentralised Planning, Panchayat, Women Studies, Joint Forest Management and Social Engineering.
There are no reviews yet.