Shillong, Jun 6: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma projected Meghalaya as a key voice in the Northeast’s growth agenda at the recently concluded North Eastern Council Plenary held here, saying the state arrived “not with a wish list but with a roadmap.”
According to an official release issued on Saturday, Sangma chaired the high-level task force on Northeast tourism and argued that “the eight northeastern states are more powerful as a single destination than as competing ones.” He said the region “must market itself collectively, allowing tourists to move across state boundaries as part of a seamless regional experience rather than treating each state as an isolated attraction.”
Citing Meghalaya’s development record, the release said the state’s economy has doubled over the last five years with capital investment increasing fourfold since 2018. It noted that the state’s first IT park is operating at capacity, over 150 tourism projects are under development, and the Shillong Airport runway expansion has been awarded with a 15-month completion timeline. The state is targeting 1.8 million visitors annually.
On entrepreneurship, the CM-ELEVATE programme offering up to 75 per cent subsidy across 14 sectors drew more than 29,000 applications in its first two months, while the PRIME incubation programme has supported nearly 4,400 beneficiaries and helped launch 240 enterprises. Meghalaya was recognised as the top performer state at the National Startup Awards in consecutive years, the release said.
“Meghalaya will not wait to be discovered. It will build until it cannot be ignored,” Chief Minister Sangma was quoted as saying in the release.
The release said the NEC is evolving “from a funding agency into a policy institution,” with Sangma noting that what matters now is “not just what resources flow to the region but how those resources are directed and what ideas shape that direction.”
Meghalaya did not attend that gathering as a small state hoping to be heard. It arrived as a state with something to say,” the release said, adding that the state is helping to lead the Northeast’s region toward a robust 2047.
