SHILLONG: An organisation called ‘Fridays For Future Meghalaya’, which advocates climate change and environmental justice, organised a week-long protest outside the PWD premises at Barik, expressing dissatisfaction over the proposed government idea of constructing a shopping mall.
Fridays For Future Meghalaya, which is part of the larger Fridays For Future network of youth activist across the globe, is led in the state by Joel B Kyndiah.
In a statement issued here, Kyndiah said the protest was part of an online social media campaign with the hashtag – #NoToBarikMall – which seeks to raise the urgency of the mall construction at Barik as an unnecessary and uncalled idea.
“Fridays For Future Meghalaya would like to stress upon the idea of building a mall along the lines of
Delhi’s Saket Mall as preventable waste of funds from the public coffer, especially during this time when our state is already incurring huge expenditures due to the pandemic”, the statement said.
Kyndiah also said that the dissatisfaction over the mall construction is not only from an environmental point but also an intersectional issue, one which would lead to a neo-liberal invasion of foreign franchisees at the cost of local entrepreneurs and small business owners.
He added that they would prefer to have a space conducive for the young and old, musicians, artists, readers, writers, speakers, small shop keepers, vendors, craftspeople and for the village folk selling seasonal produce of fruits and vegetables.
