From Our Correspondent
TURA: The Garo Students Union has withdrawn its economic road blockade of National Highway 62 in East Garo Hills district with effect from Wednesday.
The Union took the decision to call off their five-day-old stir after the Meghalaya Government issued a notification appointing a college principal and assured to speed up repair work of all major roads in the district.
“We have intimated the agitating organization about the steps taken by the government with the appointment of a principal to Williamnagar Government College and to look into the road condition problem,” informed East Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner, Pravin Bakshi, who held hectic parlays with the agitators to end the economic blockade.
The State Government has issued a notification appointing Mrs T Lyngdoh the present Vice-Principal of Tura Government College, as the new Principal of Williamnagar Govt College.
Earlier last week, at the start of the agitation on Friday, the State Government cleared the appointment of 17 lecturers to the college in the hope the Union would halt their proposed stir.
However, the GSU intensified their stir from that of a night blockade of coal trucks movement to a full 24 hours indefinite closure of the only road that exported coal from Garo Hills to other states. They went a step further organizing a largescale office picketing of all government offices in Williamnagar, district headquarters of East Garo Hills from Monday literally crippling the government machinery.
The office picketing resulted in stagnation of government paperwork and financial transactions as student agitators picketed government offices, banks and the postal system. Important government works pertaining to central projects such as the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) scheme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme’s ongoing works and delivery of the central Old Age Pension scheme to the elderly poor were hit by the stir.
On demand for better road connectivity in the region and repair of NH-62, the student union was given a status report on the ongoing restoration works. According to the status report reconstruction and strengthening of 71 kms of the highway from Wageasi to Dangsa A’we has already been cleared and the first leg of repair works covering a distance of 11.4 kms has been initiated from Dainadubi to Wageasi along the Williamnagar-Rongjeng-Songsak-Dainadubi-Mendipather road.