Editor,
Like a bolt from the blue I was so glad to see through Mawphor and Highland Post that Conrad Sangma, CM of Meghalaya, went to the forlorn Jatah and nearby Syntung villages on April 9 to visit and interact with the inhabitants there and to hear from the villagers themselves about their prolonged isolation and neglect and about their difficulties and pathos and vagaries of rural life in that part of remote Khyrim Elaka of Mawkynrew C&RD Block.
I could visualise and understand from the media how happy the villagers were when they saw that the CM himself for the first time set foot in their villages, sang songs and played musical instruments with a local band in their midst. They temporarily forgot their pangs and sorrows in the company of the CM and other VIPs but very soon they found themselves back in the stark realities of hard rural life.
However, they found some consolation when the CM ensured to immediately extend Rs 3 crore to develop tourism infrastructure facilities at Syntung, which has rich tourism potentialities, to boost tourism there. Then he assured to extend financial help to set up Fruit Processing Units to the Integrated Voluntary Co-operative Societies and SHGs in the Jatah area and also assured redevelopment of football playgrounds and construct school buildings.
Therefore, my suggestion to the Chief Minister Conrad Sangma is to keep continuing his good work by visiting remotely inhabited villages which have no one to care for their development on all fronts and to do this great job by discarding party lines. Because all villages, irrespective of Garo, Khasi and Jaintia Hills and also irrespective of party affiliations, deserve to be treated with justice and fair play for 99 percent of MLAs and MDCs are partisan.
Philip Marwein, Senior Journalist,
Shillong 2
