SHILLONG: Tired of fake promises made by politicians before elections to resolve the lingering Meghalaya-Assam border dispute, a resident of Mawkyrwat has filed an RTI to find out about the stalemate.
Addressing the media on Monday, RTI applicant DK Iawphniaw said, “I have been listening to politicians who get vocal about resolving the border dispute with Assam during election campaigns. But they fall into deep slumber post the campaigns and take no remedial steps.”
Iawphniaw said that there have been numerous talks on inter-state border dispute but absence of documents in Meghalaya is a major drawback. He criticised the leaders of the hill state movement saying the state was bifurcated from Assam without any proper documents of land boundary. As per the RTI, he did not get a reply to the query “on exact area of our state during bifurcation with authentic documents available with the three autonomous district councils and the state government”.
Iawphniaw added that the department also failed to provide the information on the names of the areas (district wise) which were forcibly encroached upon and occupied by the Assam government since the inception of Meghalaya state.
As per the RTI reply, he said since 1972 to till date, the number of chief ministerial meetings is 20, chief secretarial meetings is seven and nodal officers’ meetings three. The RTI at the Revenue and Disaster Management Department was filed in September and October but the queries provided by them were not sufficient and was again filed in November.
Iawphniaw said the Revenue and Disaster Management Department said it did not get a reply from the Political Department.
He sent letters to leaders of regional parties, UDP leader Donkupar Roy and HSPDP leader KP Pangniang, in which he sought clarification from them regarding the inter-state border dispute. Iawphniaw also filed an RTI about job reservation policy in the state maintaining that no preference was given by the District Selection Committee (DSC) to candidates from respective districts.
He also alleged that the non-official members of the DSC are under-graduates when the rules pointed out that the non-official members of the DSC should be graduates.
