The Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) has urged the state government to resume the second phase of boundary talks with Assam at the earliest.
While the first phase was wrapped up in 2022, there has been little progress with the second phase, which is meant to resolve the border dispute in six more complicated areas of difference.
HSPDP president KP Pangniang said that the party has urged the Chief Minister to get the negotiations going again.
Informing that the West Khasi Hills regional committee has sat for two meetings and the DC recently expressed readiness to meet with their counterpart in Assam for a public hearing, Pangniang said that the CM has also expressed that the government wants the matter to materialise and there has been communication with the government of Assam.
The Langpih sector, which is expected to be challenging to resolve, remains to be dealt with in West Khasi Hills. Admitting that there are villages in the Langpih area that want to join Assam, Pangniang said that the majority of villages have expressed a desire to stay with Meghalaya.
During the meeting with the Chief Minister, the party also sought recognition of Khasi and Garo as official languages to enable unemployed youths to compete in central government jobs.
The party referred to the recruitment of Gram Dak Sevaks by the post office wherein those who were recruited cannot converse in the local languages, that has led to difficulties and misunderstanding, delays, and overall negative smooth functioning of the work.
Stating that the party had recently met the senior Post Master on the matter, the HSPDP president said they were informed that the recruitment lies with the Centre but the State government could also raise the issue.
According to the pary, the recruitment process currently favours candidates from other states who have higher marks in Hindi, as only English and Hindi marks are considered during evaluation.
