New Delhi: The Meghalaya government is reviewing its industrial policy in a bid to attract investors to the state that will also take care of the concerns and suspicions of the locals about outsiders.
The policy will protect the interest of the indigenous people, according to Meghalaya Urban Affairs Minister M Ampareen Lyngdoh.
“The industrial policy of our state is currently being reviewed. We are working on a three-tier card system,” she told PTI.
The card system will be for monitoring people coming from outside the state and addressing the concerns among locals that they may lose their identity and get submerged due to “the onslaught of immigration”, she added.
“I think we are looking at a policy that is going to be friendly and protective at the same time,” Lyngdoh said.
“Right now the Noida-like growth, Gurgaon-like growth is not happening in places like Shillong, Nongstoin, Jowai fairly because of inherent problems that we have — our suspiciousness of outsiders, our suspiciousness of anybody who wants to come and bring us a good project,” Lyngdoh said.
The government is working on this aspect with various stakeholders of the society, she added.
“We are also a state that is minerally very rich. So we are working and designing ways and means, by which we need to package this front of our state, our resources, keeping in mind all the environmental requirements, make it sure that we don’t cross the line,” Lyngdoh said. Meghalaya currently has five thrust areas of industries — minerals, horticulture and agro-related, electronics and IT, export-oriented units and tourism. Apart from various Central government schemes, the state also provides various subisidies to attract investment such as 30 per cent power rebate and refund of central sales tax. While talking about the lack of economic growth in the state, Lyngdoh blamed the Centre for its “apathy” and said the state should not be in “isolation” from rest of the country in the name of insurgency in the entire North East.
“Not a negligence as such but then an apathy for the simple reason that because we did have those (insurgency) problems, so (the Centre said) let us not get into solving the other issues because of this issue,” she said when asked about the allegations of continuous negligence from the Central government since Independence. The state still lacks in technology, innovativeness and bulk or mass production facilities compared to the states from other parts of the country, she added.
“There are multiple reasons… I think that, yes, we have a problem of insurgency. I would not call it terrorism per se, but I would call it insurgency. But in the name of insurgency, we should not be in isolation. Because that isolation automatically makes us more vulnerable to these kinds of complications,” Lyngdoh said. She, however, said the Central government is now looking at these issues and the state has had several rounds of discussions with union ministers to improve the facilities.
“I hope that this (negligence) will soon become a thing of the past,” she added. Lyngdoh said insurgency is hampering development of the state in terms of road, communication and other infrastructure building. “…because of that, many of the international MNCs, who would otherwise do very well in a state like ours, are apprehensive of coming. But at the same time, because of that, it does not mean that we stop trying, we stop sorting out these problems. We need to work on it seriously, concertedly,” she added. Talking about the weak points of her state, Lyngdoh said Meghalaya lacks in communication networks like airports, transport systems and even a better Internet systems as “we are strategically located in a very sensitive area”. Emphasising the need to market the state in a better way as it has “a lot of catching up to do”, Lyngdoh said Meghalaya is doing well in certain departments like sericulture and forestry.
“One thing that our state definitely has is talented skilled young individuals. We have Meghalayans working in many parts of the country — whether it is in the IT, corporate sector or it is in the service sector. We have this ready-made market of young fluent English speaking individuals. So we are banking on that,” she expressed optimism. (PTI)