Every month, each district in Nagaland holds its District Planning and Development Board meeting where almost all the issues related to governance pertaining to the respective districts are discussed. As the name suggests, the board deliberates and decides on issues related to the planning and development of the district.
Each DPDB is headed by a chairman, usually an elected member of the state legislative assembly from the ruling dispensation, with the deputy commissioner of the given district as the vice chairman. All the heads of departments of the district are members of the board, including some members from the apex civil society organizations.
While most of the major decisions taken in the board meetings are forwarded to the state government for further perusal, most district specific issues are discussed and settled at the district level by the board.
Information on when, how or why the District Planning and Development Boards came into being in Nagaland was not immediately known till the writing of this column but, by observing the proceedings of the meeting as reported by the DPRO of the respective districts reveal a consistent pattern.
We will try to divulge more details on the powers and functions, significance and relevance of the DPDBs on a later date.
For now, it is to be noted that the DPDBs play a very important role in the planning of governmental activities in the districts. It also acts as a confluence of all the departments in the district and opens more room and scope for better coordination and collaboration between the various government departments and agencies.
Besides reviewing the activities of the various government departments in the district, some of the most important decisions for the district with respect to government policy implementation are decided by the DPDB. As such, it will not be wrong to assert that the proceedings of the DPDB meetings need to be more transparent.
Of course, as stated above, the proceedings of the DPDB meetings are relayed to the public by the Department of Information and Public Relations through the various media but, DIPR being a government department, can only report so much.
It is in this context that this newspaper would like to appreciate the initiative of the Chairman of Mokokchung DPDB, Imkong L Imchen, for inviting the local press and media to the most recent meeting that was held on June 8.
While the press and media personnel are not members of the board and cannot participate in the proceedings of the meeting, they can attend and observe and thereby report according to their conviction objectively.
Besides, by being physically present, the press can gather more information on various government activities which they can follow up on later on to keep the public informed. It is hoped that the invitation would not be a one off affair and that other districts would follow Mokokchung DPDB. How the local press and media follow the DPDB is another thing, though.