NONGPOH, July 15: Allegations of Assam Government providing electricity to the bordering villages in Ri-Bhoi have come to fore with Ri Bhoi District Deputy Commissioner Arpit Upadhyaya assuring to take up the matter with his Assam counterpart.
The Synjuk Ki Rangbah Shnong Raid Nongtung falling under Block II in Ri Bhoi and the leaders of the KSU have accused the Assam Government of provide electricity in select border villages without the consent of the village leaders.
Expressing dissent to the alleged move, the village leaders and members of the KSU also called on Ri Bhoi District Deputy Commissioner Arpit Upadhyaya, seeking his intervention into the matter.
KSU Eastern Border Area president Banjop Maring, while addressing the media persons, informed that the meeting with the DC was successful.
The DC has promised that he will ask his counterpart from Assam to stop the project, Maring said, while asserting that if the Assam Government continues with such activities along the border areas, the Union will continue to protest.
Meanwhile, Synjuk president Blik Sohtun said that the Assam Government had recently unloaded electrical wires and posts in several villages of Raid Nongtung without the knowledge and consent of the headmen concerned.
Smelling a rat over Assam’s intention to implement developmental schemes along the border areas, Sohtun said that whenever Meghalaya would try to implement schemes, the Assam Government would interfere and stop it. “But they themselves continue to implement schemes though without the consent of the people and the residents,” he rued.
Sohtun also maintained that the while the Meghalaya government is not doing enough for the people of the border area, Assam government is focused on developing border areas.
“We have written a letter to the deputy chief minister of Meghalaya on this border issue but unfortunately it seems that nothing has come out of it. We will again write a letter to the state government and hope that this time they will act and do something for the welfare and development of the people in the border areas,” a hopeful Sohtun said.
