By Our Reporter
Shillong: Chief Minister, Dr. Mukul Sangma who was to be the chief guest at the inaugural session of the IT summit at IIM Shillong could not make it on time as he had to come from Garo Hills.
He attended the summit in the post noon session and advocated for the expeditious implementation of the proposals relating to e-Governance in the region which are pending with the central government.
Pointing out that there is only about 40% internet penetration in Meghalaya, Dr Sangma said the Government to Citizen (G2C) services would not be fully operational if the internet band width does not improve and if the power scenario remained as poor as it is today. “Garo Hills cannot remain dependent on power supply from Umiam Lake since the transmission and distribution lines have to pass through huge distances making maintenance difficult. We will have to improve the power scenario in Garo Hills but this will take time,” Dr Sangma said, adding that the inability of the Government to provide G2C services through e-governance will create a lot of frustrations and that should be addressed at the earliest.
Dr Sangma urged the IT giants like Wipro, CISCO etc to invest in Meghalaya and set up IT parks since the State has already identified some 225 acres of land for the purpose. “Meghalaya is a happy destination, so let’s make it a win-win situation,” the Chief Minister told the IT companies. He also discussed the possibility of tying up with CISCO for telemedicine as one of the key areas of cooperation.
