SHILLONG, Nov 17: At a time when villages across the country look up to the urban areas in terms of pathway to modernisation, Nongmensong in Meghalaya seems to have taken the other way around.
The village, Nongmensong, which was once a census town, is now a part of rural Pynthorumkhrah Constituency.
Health Minister and local MLA, AL Hek, on Tuesday, launched five projects under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which rather substantiates that Nongmensong is a rural area.
During the launch programme, Hek said that Nongmensong was not supposed to avail schemes under MGNREGA, maintaining that it was a census town in the state earlier, as he recalled that when he first contested the election in 1998, Pynthorumkhrah was a semi-urban constituency and it was in the year 2013 that Pynthorumkhrah was notified as a rural constituency.
“I started fighting for my constituency to get all the benefits of a rural constituency, and even took the government head on,” he said, while adding that Nongmensong has been left out for many years, but now the village has to be developed using all possible means.
Stating that Mawpat was also declared as a C&RD block in 2017, the minister termed the launching of the MGNREGA schemes in Nongmensong as a landmark moment for the village.
The MLA, who is very happy with the implementation of the schemes in the area, asserted that this is just the beginning.
He also said that many more schemes will be sanctioned for the rural Pynthorukhrah Constituency under various governmental programmes.
“We will make Nongmensong a shining village,” Hek added.