SHILLONG, JAN 21: Even after forty one years of attaining statehood, Meghalaya has got miles to go in terms of bringing peace in the state, said Mesghalaya governor RS Mooshahary.
Addressing the 41st Meghalaya Statehood Day celebration here on Monday, RS Mooshahary said said that Meghalaya is still witnessing a ‘phase of violence’ which indicated that it is not enough to achieved only ‘political fulfillment’ of attaining statehood.
Emphasizing on the need to improve the standard of living, sense of security and well being of the people, the Governor said, “In the process of doing so, it’s not only the responsibility of the government but it is also for people to work together to achieve these objectives.”
On the other hand Mooshahary rued over the fact that there is so much of exploitation of the rich mineral resources that the state is blessed with.
“There has been a lot of exploitation of the mineral resources in the state”, the governnor said adding that unscientific and mindless mining has bring in so much destruction to the resources besides such mining resulted to environmental degradation.
Stating that mining activities will have to be change by having a scientific system in place, the Governor called upon the people of the state saying that “It is time for us to oppose this type of unscientific mining to save the future generation as mining without scientific knowledge is disastrous.”
He further stated that the soil in Meghalaya is already acidic having ph value varies from 1 to 4 at present affecting the agricultural produce which in turn poses serious threat to the human health.
On the security aspect, Mooshahary further informed that of the total stretch of 465.387 km of international border shared with counterpart Bangladesh, 239.272 km of fencing work has been completed while the remaining 226.115 km is hope to be completed within one year.
He said so far as inter-state border with Assam is concern, the two governments are working out for a permanent solution and hope this problem would be soon resolved through negotiations.
The Governor further called upon the people to use the Right to Information (RTI) to expose corruption practices which according to him is one factor which is not monopoly of one political party but is endemic in different political parties and bureaucracy hierarchy.
“If you tolerate corruption, you are indirectly helping corruption to grow and will affect development in the state,” he added.
Besides, the Governor also informed that Meghalaya High Court will soon be made functional by next month and that the process of separation of the Executive from the Judiciary will be completed within this year.Meanwhile, Meghalaya Day Award was presented to the recipients by the chief guest.(SP News)
