SHILLONG: The pro-Inner Line Permit groups have urged the state government to exempt indigenous people from the purview of the proposed Residential Bill even as they stated that the bill was the same as the Tenancy Bill and had just been renamed.
“The government has only changed the name into the Residential Bill but the content is the same. It is a cut & paste of the previous Tenancy Bill,” HNYF general secretary Sadon K Blah told newsmen here on Tuesday.
The draft of the Residential Bill was recently placed before the government. The Committee constituted for formulation of the Tenancy Bill was headed by Deputy Chief Minister Rowell Lyngdoh. Blah decried the state government’s contention that the proposed residential Bill should be applicable to each and every citizen, saying that Meghalaya was a tribal-dominated state.
The HNYF general secretary sought two weeks from the state government so that the various pressure groups could study the proposed bill and send their objections and suggestions to the government.
The pressure group also resented the fact that the Rowell Committee had failed to mention in the Bill that it would be mandatory for people coming from outside the state to produce the ‘entry permit’ while renting a house in the state.
“We had, in our proposals submitted to the government earlier, emphasized on the need to make it mandatory for people from outside to produce the entry permit issued at the entry/exit points while renting houses,” Blah said.
