The Hynñiewtrep National Youth Front (HNYF) has joined the chorus against the Meghalaya State Investment Promotion and Facilitation (MSIPF) and, with it, the Invest Meghalaya Authority (IMA), claiming that they will harm the tribal community of the state by opening the way for control of land by outside private companies.
The pressure group has written a letter to the Chief Minister spelling out its opposition and also held a press conference on the issue here today.
The IMA is meant to be the means by which private companies have access to land in the state, which is otherwise tightly controlled by the Land Transfer Act, for development projects, all part of the state government’s aim to provide lakhs of new jobs and increase the state’s GDP to $10 billion. It will stick to the letter of the law, though, by not selling land to these entities but only give the land on long-term lease, up to 60 years.
Numerous pressure groups and opposition parties have reacted with shock to these moves, however. The HNYF said that the act is, in effect, “an agent of land acquisition in favour of non-tribal entities.”
The act also places a huge amount of trust and responsibility in the hands of the CM and cabinet minister, the HNYF said, making them “neo-feudal lords”. Section 39 of the act also “grants legal immunity” to the chairman of the governing council and high powered committee and all its members, “implying that the neo-feudal lords are beyond the reach of judicial scrutiny.”
The pressure group asked that the act be put on hold and the government first consult relevant stakeholders.
