Guidelines for Reclamation Fund get Cabinet approval

SHILLONG, March 31: The State Cabinet on Thursday approved the Meghalaya Minor Mineral Reclamation Fund Management Guidelines 2022.
Informing this, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said that Reclamation Fund was started in 2015 at the behest of the Meghalaya High Court in a bid to rectify the damages caused to the environment by illegal mining. However, despite the allocation of funds in the Reclamation Fund, guidelines to use the same were not framed.
Now that the guidelines are framed, the Cabinet has also approved the same, the CM informed.
He also said that after the approval of the aforesaid guidelines, the utilisation of the funds will now be initiated accordingly.
The chief minister also informed that Reclamation Fund will be implemented mainly to reclaim the areas where minor minerals have been excavated.
Conrad also said that there is no specific amount allocated for the Reclamation Fund.
“It will depend on proposal that will come up. For this, a number of departments have been identified through which the implementation will be done. Departments of Soil and Water Conservation, Mining and Geology, Forest, pollution boards etc have been identified through which the funds will be released and this will be worked out at the executive committee level, which will be finally approved by the governing body headed by the Minister in-charge of Forest department,” he added.
Cabinet nod to collaboration for fellowship prog, GST Rules amendment
The Cabinet has also approved the proposed collaboration with the National Law School of India University for the PA Sangma Fellowship for Legal & Policy Research & Training.
Informing this, the chief minister said that the purpose of the collaboration is to have the students from Meghalaya in the aforesaid institute work with the Government of India.
On the other hand, the chief minister took to Twitter and said, “Cabinet approved the Ex-post facto approval of the amendment to the GST Rules carried out in the years 2018-2021. Cabinet also approved the proposal for Ex-Post Facto approval of Cabinet on future amendments in the GST Rules as per recommendations of the GST Council.”