SHILLONG: Urban Affairs Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh on Wednesday expressed regret for having described the whole of Mawlai area of Shillong as a slum, but refused to tender an apology, as demanded by Mawlai legislator Embhahlang Syiemlieh.
“It has not been my intention to instigate and agitate any member. But in my haste reply, I might have hurt the feelings of some of the members and for which I express my regret,” Lyngdoh said.
Syiemlieh insisted that Lyngdoh should apologize for her remarks since she had hurt the sentiments of the people of his constituency. Speaker Abu Taher Mondal however said that the Urban Affairs Minister had already clarified her stand on this matter.
Earlier, Nongkrem legislator Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit had expressed shock to know that the Mawlai locality of the city had been notified as a slum area.
In her reply during the half hour discussion initiated by Nongthymmai legislator Jemino Mawthoh on the issue of urban management and planning, Ampareen said that she had hastily termed the whole of Mawlai as a slum.
She further said that it was not her intention to say that the whole Mawlai was a slum area. “What I had meant to say was that apart from many of the slum areas which were identified in and around municipal area, if one goes by the definition in the State for identification of slums, many pockets in Mawlai as well as in the other township of Shillong Urban conglomeration would emerge as slum,” the Urban Affairs Minister said.
She also said that it was a different matter the department was unable to intervene in such areas due to the lack of urban bodies in such townships. According to her, she had tried her best to inform the members that, with the growing urbanization and with limited scope of intervention by the department due to the peculiar constitutional position, more slum pockets would emerge in the Greater Shillong in the days to come.
“It will not be right to equate our slums with the slums which we hear and see in the cities like Mumbai and Kolkata. Instead of looking at the problem with emotion let us be more pragmatic to address the problem in a more meaningful and practical way,” she said.
The Minister informed the assembly that the Meghalaya Slum Area (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1973 defined a slum as an area “in any respect unfit for human habitation or by any reason of dilapidation, overcrowding, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, height or sanitation facilities or any combination of some or all of these factors is detrimental to safety health or moral of the people of the area.”
“On the basis of the above criteria, the identification of slum areas is taken up by conducting physical as well as socio-economic surveys. A total of 23 slums have been identified and notified in Greater Shillong area,” the Urban Affairs Minister said.