SHILLONG: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Wednesday assured a delegation of the India Mountain Initiative (IMI) that full cooperation will be given to them for furthering their activities in the State.
The delegation led by IMI president Sushil Ramola and IMI secretary Fantry Mein Jaswal along with other officials met the chief minister to explore and strengthen the activities of the IMI in the state to enable people to deal with the unique challenges that the people of the region face.
During the meeting, Sangma enlightened the delegation on the government’s initiative to boost sustainable tourism in the state. He told them that the government has charted out a road map to livelihood which revolves around the tourism industry.
“We are making efforts to strike a balance between environment and promotion of tourism activities in the state,” Sangma told the delegation, while advising them to work on similar activities to further the objective of promoting a sustainable model of tourism in the state.
Chief Advisor to the Chief Minister Thomas A Sangma, retired Forest official Tony C Marak and Director of Administration, North East Region Community Resource Management Project (NERCoRMP) K Hrishikesh Singh were also present during the meeting.
IMI is a platform for building on the collective knowledge, experience and energies of all stakeholders from across the India Himalayan Region (IHR) in finding solutions to problems such as climate change, agriculture based livelihoods, sustainable urbanisation and disaster risk reduction for sustainable development of the mountains.
Ramola and Jaswal also informed Sangma that the IMI works in partnership with different state government to device policies and strategies.
They also told the chief minister about the Sustainable Mountain Development Summit which is held annually by the organisation.
They also stated that the Meghalaya chapter of the association has been constituted and that discussion on the matter was held with the Vice Chancellor of Martin Luther Christian University Vincent Darlong and officials from NERCoRMP.
