SHILLONG, Dec 15: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured all possible support to the Meghalaya government for achieving its targets and goals which include setting up of an administrative city at the New Shillong Township in the next five years.
Informing this after his meeting with Modi in New Delhi recently, Meghalaya chief minister Conrad K Sangma said he had apprised the Prime Minister about the detailed development works and status of different programmes.
”A brief report was submitted and I gave a small presentation to him and he was very happy to see the different kinds of works that are happening in the state and he was especially pleased to see that the overall developmental budget for the state in the last few years has gone up by more than double in the last five years, almost touching triple of what it used to be 5-6 years back,” he said.
Also sharing the vision of the state and the different targets being set to achieve them in the coming five years, Sangma said, “I have sought his (PM) intervention and support in helping us, guiding us and supporting us to be able to achieve those targets and goals that we have in the next five years.”
”I also shared with him the vision of having the New Shillong Township where we are planning to put up a new administrative city and new secretariat and shared with him the plan and rough designs and also asked for his support to make sure that project does move forward. He was very happy to see these developments and he had assured of all possible support from his side,” he added.
Further, the chief minister also met union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and requested her to increase the ceiling and give additional externally aided projects (EAPs) to Meghalaya based on its good performance.
“Again, I briefed her about the different projects that are going on through the capital investment fund that the Government of India is supporting different states with through the EAPs that we are doing and also different kinds of development works that are going on,” he said while adding, “I requested the finance minister to support us further in the EAPs as the Government of India has put a cap on different states on the limit to which states can take EAPs and hence we have requested her to increase the ceiling and give additional projects to states who are performing states like Meghalaya which have already taken a large number of projects but since our performance have been good we requested that we be supported.”
”The finance minister has given a positive response and assured us of help and support and that she will give it a positive consideration. So we look forward to their support and from the finance ministry and the Prime Minister so that we can achieve the different targets and the goals that we have set for the state of Meghalaya,” he added further. (NNN)
