Shilong, July 13: Meghalaya government has launched the MGNREGS in Census towns of the state.
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, launched the MGNREGS in Census towns of Meghalaya at an event that was held at the State Convention Centre.
Sangma, expressing his gratitude to the Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development for clarifying the status of census towns, said that it was a simple issue but one which was not been resolved for a very long time.
“It was because of the ambiguity in the actual classification of census towns, the census towns could not derive benefits from neither the urban schemes nor the rural schemes and had missed out a lot of developmental programmes,” he said.
He added that the Government of India has clarified that MGNREGS is applicable in rural areas and since the census towns have not been notified as urban areas nor cantonment areas MGNREGS can operate in census towns.
“It is with a great sense of satisfaction today that I stand here to announce that the census towns can now derive the benefits of MGNREGS,” he said.
The Chief Minister also said that Meghalaya has been performing exceptionally well in MGNREGS and the benefits of this programme should reach more people. “We are also one of the first states to have women reservation of 15 per cent in the committees of the MGNREGS and today we have close to 2500 women secretaries in different VECs and that reflects the equality and gender participation on important decisions that are made at the grassroots level,” he added.
The Chief Minister further thanked the community for participating actively in different developmental programmes of the government.
Sangma inaugurated the P.A. Sangma Fellowship for Legal and Policy Research at Yojana Bhawan.
Overjoyed to launch the implementation of MGNREGA in Census Towns of Meghalaya. Grateful to @PMOIndia & Union Minister of @MoRD_GoI, Sh. @girirajsinghbjp Ji for extending the benefits of MGNREGA in non-rural areas of the State. pic.twitter.com/2NFd6iggoL
— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) July 12, 2022
Sangma said that the concept of having the fellowship and research based policymaking was something that has been missing for a very long time. “Though we have bureaucrats and legislators we are not experts in a number of minor details that are very important for proper law making and the larger goal is to ensure that the people are put first by this unique collaboration from the Judiciary and the Legislative side for the larger interest of the people,” he said.
The Chief Minister also said that if there is research-based policymaking there will be a better framework to ensure that the system as a whole work and to do that there is a need to build a capacity for everyone.
“This programme is part of the larger goal in order to make sure that the system as a whole improves and the capacity of every individual improves,” he added.
The Chief Minister also said that Late P A Sangma was a person with a very tall personality with diverse background in Law, Journalism, Teaching and Politics. “He was a person who had an understanding of Law and had experience both in the Judiciary as a person who had been practicing Law himself and had experience in policymaking as a Legislator after he entered Politics so it is only befitting that this fellowship programme is named after him,” he added.
Law Minister James K Sangma said that the launch is also the realization of the vision of seeing the boosting of the governance and student engagements as well as capacity-building exercises of the officers of the State.
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“Although the State of Meghalaya is small there are socio-economic challenges, challenges in streamlining public services, challenges on ensuring representation and participation and most importantly the challenge of catering governance to the people in a just, timely and impartial manner,” he said.
He also said that it is only when the situation is demanding and one steps up to accomplish tasks to handle and achieve the goals and added that the fellowship that has been instituted is a step to that effect as the fellows will see the same challenges and work on the solutions towards the same.
The Minister further added that governance is a slow process from research and consultations to implementation and monitoring while public expectations are highly dynamic and varied and keeping up with this needs capacity building from time to time to also keep up with evolving and changing times and environments.
The inauguration was also attended by officers from the Law Department, law students and the research fellows.
