SHILLONG, AUG 13: The Meghalaya Cabinet on Thursday approved an expert committee report to introduce a dedicated paper on the state in the Meghalaya Civil Services examination, and decided to table the Meghalaya Official Languages Bill, 2026 in the upcoming Assembly session.
After chairing the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said the new paper aims to ensure that civil servants have in-depth knowledge of Meghalaya.
“We had put up an expert committee to basically include a chapter on the state, on Meghalaya state and its history, its culture and all the other information in the MCS competitive exam. So there is going to be an additional paper, paper number six, which will be specifically on the state of Meghalaya,” Sangma said.
He said the objective is to equip future officers with local knowledge.
“The objective is that MCS officers must have knowledge of the state, including its history, its culture, its different systems and different economic aspects and so on and so forth,” he said.
The report was prepared by a committee headed by former UPSC Chairman Prof. David R. Syiemlieh.”It is a full report which was submitted by the committee headed by Professor David Syiemlieh and we have approved that committee’s report today in the cabinet,” the Chief Minister said.
On the language bill, Sangma said the government will now give statutory status to Khasi and Garo.
“As you are aware, this had come in the form of an ordinance and now since the session is coming, we will be formally taking up the bill and passing the amended Act, where Khasi and Garo will also be official languages of the state,” he said.
The cabinet also discussed the content of the Chief Minister’s Independence Day address.
“The speech that has to be given on Independence Day, those different aspects of the speech were discussed and shared with the cabinet,” Sangma added.
By Our Reporter
