ILP: SIA before the entry & exit points

SHILLONG, FEB 26: The Congress led state government on Friday  directed the completion of the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) within two months to pave way for construction of the

entry/exit points, which seeks to regulate illegal influx entering the state.

Also assuring to introduce the two important bills, related to benami and tenancy verification in the upcoming 14-day budget session, the government has agreed to discuss on the need to fine tune the draft bills in a meeting to be held next week.

The decision was taken at a meeting convened by Chief Minister Mukul Sangma with the leaders of the 13 pro-Inner Line Permit (ILP) ngos to discuss on the implementation of the anti-influx comprehensive mechanism held on Friday.

“The Chief Minister has directed the consultant agency-Meghalaya Institute Governance (MIG) to complete the social impact assessment (SIA) within a period of two months to enable the state to start constructing the entry/exit points,” KSU president Daniel Khyriem told reporters after the meeting.

According to him, the SIA is mandatory as per the new land acquisition act, in which the state government has to ensure that there is no objection on the part of the local residents while coming up with such projects.

Khyriem also said that the proposed SIA will be conducted for the 14 entry/exit points (located in the different parts of the state), which were notified by the state government under the first phase.

“The CM has also informed that 14 teams will be carrying out the SIA to ensure that the process is speed up,” he said adding “We are happy that the state government has done its duty towards facilitating the implementation of the comprehensive mechanism.”

Meanwhile, the state government has also assured the delegation to introduce the two bills – Meghalaya Tenants Verification and Regulation Bill, 2016 and the Meghalaya (Benami Transactions Prohibition) (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the State Assembly.

“However, we have decided to sit for another round of meeting to ensure that the two bills are further fine-tuned before they are placed before the Assembly,” FKJGP president Joe Marwein said.

He informed that this is because that the state government is yet to include some of the important suggestions put forth by the ngos in the drafts of both the bills.

When asked, Marwein said, “With regards to the benami bill, we have stressed the need to include the ‘detection’ provision in view of the fact that though the Act, 1980 existed for many years, yet not a single complaint or no one was ever convicted for acts of benami transactions in the state. This is despite of the fact that the practice of benami is rampant in the state.”

“We have also demanded the state government to ensure that the local indigenous tribes – Khasi, Jaintia and Garo are exempted from the purview of the tenancy bill. What has been practice since time immemorial when it comes to local tenants should remain,” he said.

Adding to this, HNYF general secretary Sadon Blah said, “We want the bill to ensure that the local indigenous people should not face any kind of problems. The bill should be exclusively to regulate tenants who are people from outside the state.”

“On this, the state government has assured us that it would come up with an exemption provision for the locals,” he said while informing that the exemption provision will be brought before the upcoming meeting to be held next week.

Blah however informed that the delegation has also proposed to change the name of benami Act, 1980 by adding the word ‘prohibition’ and ‘detection’.

“This is because the propose amendment bill did not have such word ‘detection’ in its nomenclature. The government has also agreed to incorporate this suggestion,” he said.-By Our Reporter