The Meghalaya Government will initiate funds from MGNREGA(Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) to implement scheme for construction of fish ponds in the State. This initiative will be developed by both the State Government through the Meghalaya Basin Development programme and the Central Scheme through the MGNREGA. The funds for the construction of the fish ponds will come from the Fisheries Department of the Central Government.
This will also help people with job card to get jobs for 100 days as instructed through the MGNREGA.
The All Meghalaya SSA School Teachers Association (AMSSASTA) central body has taken a decision to suspend the proposed sit-in-demonstration which was to be held in the capital city on August 21, concerning the non release of the teacher’s salary for the past four months. Addressing media, Lasfurious Marngar who is the AMSSASTA President said, “We had earlier held a general executive committee meeting to discuss on the silence of the State Government over our salary which is left pending to be released for the month of April till July and we had set an ultimatum to the government to release the salary before August 20.”
According to him, UP school teacher’s salary from Rs. 20, 493 has been reduced to Rs, 20, 000 and for LP teachers their salary has been reduced from Rs. 19,943 to Rs. 15, 000. He, however said, “In our discussion with the Chief Minister on August 16, he informed that the State Government will bear the additional expenditure so that the salary of the teachers will remain the same.”
He said that the Chief Minister had also urged them (teachers) to remain patient till the end of this month for the release of their salary. “The Chief Minister had told us that he will try his level best to release the teacher’s salary hence we have decided to suspend the sit-in-demonstration which was scheduled for August 21,” he said.
He informed that this decision was taken by all the members of the association from different district of the state.
The Defence Authorities clarified that the reason for blocking the bridge on the Umkhen Riveron the outskirts of Shillong is for the safety of the local who are using the damage bridge. It is learnt that the residents of Jyntah Village accused the Indian Army’s Assam Regiment of harassment after the Defence Authorities blocked two bridges with barb wires forcing locals to walk across the River Umkhen.
PRO Defence Meghalaya stated that “The 150 year old bridge at Umkhen River is damaged and the support structure is broken causing Army to block it for safety of civilians. It was after the visit of Pyniaid Sing Syiem who is the Member of District Council (MDC) of Mawryngkneng, a Magistrate Mardondor Tongper and members of the Khasi Student’s Union (KSU) met the Army Authorities and the bridge was allowed for civilians to re-use.
Every time the Judiciary has asked the Umroi Air Port Authorities to complete works within a certain time frame work, the dead line is always extended on some plea or another. This time the State High Court in Shillong, seems to be firm in its instruction, that the air port authorities should complete all works by September 30, and that the air port be fully functional. Though Umroi is already linked with a daily flight to the nearest metropolis Calcutta, yet making Shillong the hub of flights within the North East have not been taken in right earnest. The Court had pointed out that, there was breach of the time limit. That was fixed a number of times. It warned that any further delay will be totally at the peril of the authorities. Airport authorities had assured that operational landing and take-off facilities to metro cities in the country are being finalized within the stipulated time frame.
The State Government has announced for providing free medicines in all the Government Hospitals and Health Centres across the state. In the face of this announcement, the state has faced many medicinal anomalies when most of the medicines including life saving drugs were not available, as they are generally out of stock. Patients have to go out and search in the pharmacies to buy medicines from outside. Therefore the new drug policy of free medicines within the hospitals and health centres can be only wishful thinking, if implementation of such a policy is not taken seriously.
