Shillong, March 17: The first meeting of the Committee for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Meghalaya’s Statehood was held today at Yojana Bhavan.
The State Information and Public Relations department has been designated as the nodal department to chalk out plans pertaining to programmes and activities to be undertaken during the year long celebration leading up to the state’s 50th anniversary on the 21st of January 2022.
Various suggestions were given by members of the Committee which comprises of different stakeholders and prominent citizens, political leaders, and bureaucrats.
Enlightening the gathering on the purpose of the proposed year long celebration Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said, ‘The entire purpose of celebrating this 50th anniversary of Statehood is to really understand and remind our population, our State and our citizens, especially the younger generation on how we got the state and how lucky we are to have our own state. It is important to remind our young generation about and the sacrifices that were made by our leaders for the attainment of a separate State.
So therefore this celebration should be done in such a manner that we allow every citizen of this State to connect with the celebration, so that they start feeling what our forefathers and our leaders at that time felt (for the state), when they were fighting for it.’
As the country celebrates its 75th anniversary next year the Chief Minister also felt that combining the activities and programmes of the statehood celebration together with the national celebrations would be more meaningful. ‘So it’s a dual celebration for Meghalaya, 75 years of our country’s Independence and 50 years of our Statehood’, he added.
The Meeting today also proposed to engage concerned departments for the design of a State logo and come out with an Anthem for the State.
