Shillong, June 13: The Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma today assured a delegation of the India Mountain Initiative (IMI) full cooperation for furthering their activities and intervention in the State.
The delegation led by President of IMI Sushil Ramola and Secretary IMI Fantry Mein Jaswal along with other officials met the Chief Minister to explore and strengthen the activities of IMI in the State for enabling mountain people to deal with the unique challenges the people of the region faces.
During the meeting, the Chief Minister enlightened the delegation on Government’s initiative to boost sustainable tourism in the State. He told them that the Government has chart out a road map to provide livelihood which revolves around tourism industry.
“We are making effort to strike a balance between environment and promotion of tourism activities in the State,” the Chief Minister told the delegation, while advising them to work on similar activities to further the objective of promoting sustainable model of tourism in Meghalaya.
Chief Advisor to the Chief Minister Thomas A. Sangma and retired Senior Forest Official Tony C. Marak and Director Administration North East Region Community Resource Management Project (NERCORMP) K. Hrishikesh Singh were also present in the meeting.
IMI is a platform for building on the collective knowledge, experience and energies of all stakeholders from across all the stakeholders in the India Himalayan Region (IHR) to find solutions for the complex problems, such as climate change, agriculture based livelihoods, sustainable urbanisation and disaster risk reduction for sustainable development of the mountains.
Ramola and Jaswal briefed the Chief Minister that IMI works in partnership with different State Government to device policies and strategies. They also told the Chief Minister about the Sustainable Mountain Development Summit, which is held annually by the organisation to be hosted in Meghalaya in near future.
They told the Chief Minister that the Meghalaya Chapter of the association has been constituted and discussion on the matter was held with Vice Chancellor of Martin Luther Christian University Dr. Vincent Darlong and officials from NERCoRMP.
