SHILLONG, March 7: Conrad K. Sangma was sworn in as the Chief Minister of the state for the second straight term on Tuesday.
Governor Phagu Chauhan administered the oath of office and secrecy in the presence of an august gathering that had Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president JP Nadda and Chief Ministers of Assam, Sikkim and Jharkhand.
Eleven others – seven from NPP, two from UDP and one each from BJP and HSPDP – were also sworn in. The state has got two Deputy Chief Ministers in Prestone Tynsong and Sniawbhalang Dhar (both from NPP). While Tynsong served in the post in MDA-I, Dhar, who served as a cabinet minister, got a promotion.
After taking oath, Sangma told journalists the state government will take steps to ensure that there are no illegal coal mining activities. He said four groups received clearances for scientific mining and their mining plan should be cleared in a couple of months.
“We expect scientific mining to start once this exercise is completed,” he said.
On the relocation of the settlers of Harijan Colony from Them Iew Mawlong, Sangma said, “We will see how we move forward, carry everybody along and come to an understanding.”
He said the High-Level Committee worked very hard in the last five years to find a solution to the issue.
To a query, he said Meghalaya has a precedence of two Deputy Chief Ministers serving in a government.
“There’s nothing wrong. It is a strong representation of different areas and regions. It sends a positive message and that is a reason why we are going ahead with it,” the CM said.
He said MDA 1 laid the foundation for several sectors and MDA 2 will continue to work aggressively on those foundations and build a better state. He said the government will continue to work in its focused areas to ensure the improvement of overall infrastructure.
“We are working very hard for the improvement of social sectors like health, education and social welfare. We are giving a lot of importance to the youth, especially when it comes to employment and livelihood issues,” the chief minister said.
He recalled that when he had taken oath as the CM at the same place five years ago, he realized that the overall delivery mechanism and efficiency at the grassroots level needs to be improved.
He claimed the schemes, implemented in the previous years, got much better in the last five years because of accountability and monitoring.
“We will continue to ensure that the impact of different programmes and schemes is felt to the maximum at the grassroots level,” Sangma said.
He said the government will focus on roads, power, water connectivity, IT and other vital infrastructure.
“Other verticals of the social economic sector which are important are agriculture, food processing and tourism that are key for employment generation. We will also focus on areas concerning youth so we can provide large-scale employment. We will explore many such possibilities,” Sangma said.
Stating that it is fine that there will be different views among the coalition partners on different issues, he said they will try to have a better coordination and work as a team.
