The Meghalaya Residents’ Safety and Security Act (MRSSA) enacted in September 27, 2016 and its amended version of 2019 seeks to address the issue of influx by making everyone who wishes to enter Meghalaya go through set protocols of establishing their identity at facilitation centres set up at entry points to the State. The earlier Act of 2016 was aimed at registering tenants at the office of the local authorities and the local police stations. The amended version makes sure that every person entering the State registers himself/herself at the facilitation centres so that the State can keep a tab on their whereabouts. In short, the prime objective of this Act is to contain influx which has been a nagging problem, or is perceived to be one and a long-standing issue although there is no data on the number of illegal migrants in Meghalaya till date.
There is no denying that coal mining and the construction business rely heavily on migrant workers from Nepal and Bangladesh. These workers are put up in ramshackle huts around their place of work. Since the coal mining activities are ongoing these workers are seen at the mining sites. They are well protected by their employers and it would be safe to assume that the employers have procured the necessary documents for them.
One of the stringent instruments the MRSSA proposes is to set up facilitation centres at entry points to the state where visitors and tourists would have to establish their citizenship credentials. This is as good as the Inner Line Permit (ILP) which also stresses on the same set of documents to be produced by visitors before being permitted to enter the State. Is it necessary therefore to add to the list of laws which will ultimately be mired in bureaucratic red tape? Of course at this juncture it is not politically correct to critique the ILP hence there is complete silence from the citizens of Meghalaya including its intelligentsia. No one dares go against this populist demand because the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has created a fear psychosis that non-citizens will be granted citizenship and allowed to settle here. This fear is legitimate but the MRSSA and its modified version is empowered to meet these exigencies. The ILP has the propensity to deal a death blow to tourism in Meghalaya. The worst hit would be tour operators and home-stay/guest house owners both in urban and rural areas of the state, when footfalls will dwindle owing to the plethora of requirements needed to enter the State.
