SHILLONG: Senior Congress leader, Zenith Sangma has called for immediate protection of catchment areas in the state.
Participating in the debate on Governor’s address here during the on-going Assembly session, Zentih Sangma rued that in the name of setting up water supply schemes, sometimes the source of the water is also not examined properly.
While making a clarion call for protecting water sources, he said that immediate steps must be taken or else, there would be huge water scarcity in the future.
According to Sangma, crores of rupees were spent in the name of afforestation during the World Environment Day every year, but the tree saplings were mostly planted in urban areas and roadsides and rural areas were totally forgotten.
Zenith lamented that excavation of earth in the state had become a common practice and people excavated earth as and when they liked from any place as there was no regulations in place to regulate such activities. He said the state government must formulate certain regulations on the matter
Earlier, Sangma said that the Integrated Basin Development Livelihood Programme was initiated to create avenues for the rural population which would also check migration of rural people to the urban centres of the state.
Meanwhile, he also expressed surprise that efforts of the State Government to set up engineering colleges in the state did not find a mention in the Governor’s address.
