By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The State Government has made some progress on the issue of handing over of defence land in and around Shillong to the civil authorities.
Deputy Chief Minister in charge of Revenue and Disaster Management, Prof RC Laloo, told the House that the defence authorities have agreed to part with 32 acres of land for the expansion of the Shillong Airport at Umroi and 0.33 square km of land for a fly over from Shillong Cantonment area provided that the State Government gives equal share of land to the defence authorities.
Replying to a question by Paul Lyngdoh (UDP), Prof Laloo said that as per the data available, the area with the defence establishment in and around Shillong is 2096.12 acres.
Laloo said that a committee was constituted with the Chief Minister as the Chairman to pursue the handing over of defence land to the State Government.
The committee met twice and after the meeting held on November 21 last year, the committee decided to form another committee of officers headed by the Commissioner and Secretary of the Political Department.
This committee met on December 19 last to discuss the matter since the State Government has to give equal share of land to the defence establishment once the defence land is handed over to the Government.
According to Prof Laloo, since the land at Umroi to be handed over to the Meghalaya Government belongs to the Union Defence Ministry, there is a need to expand the committee to include the Ri Bhoi Deputy Commissioner and representatives of defence personnel to take up the matter further with the Centre.
However, Paul wanted to know the decision of the Government on sending an all-party delegation to Delhi to pursue the matter as decided in the last session of the Assembly.
To this, Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma assured that since a committee has already been formed with some legislators in the last House as members, this would be sufficient to deal with the matter.
He also indicated that the committee can be re-constituted to include one more legislator.