Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Thursday said that his government is sending a clear message that it is not taking things lightly as far as militancy activities are concerned.
Asked how government will ensure extortion activities by militant groups and other illegal activites does not defeat the objective of the providing ease of doing business through the Meghalaya Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy (MIIPP) 2024, Sangma said, “The issues that are here of extortion notes that you are mentioning out here you must have seen that we have not taken things lightly, we’ve been very aggressive and our message to everybody is that we’re not going to take it lightly.”
“We are going to take every measure to ensure that nobody brings down the confidence and strict measures are taken to ensure that law and order is maintained. There could be concerns, there could be issues, and there could be certain incidents these happened in day-to-day functioning of any government, any state in any country, we will deal with those challenges as they come along,” he said.
“But overall if you look at the progress in which we are moving forward in terms of the ecosystem in the environment that we’re creating for the private investment is far more positive than what it used to be in the past. Many of the issues have been addressed and we are making it much easier for them to come, giving them the confidence and we will slowly and steadily resolve other issues as we go along,” Sangma said.
He said, “Nothing can start 100% but we are very happy to say that we are moving towards that number and we are like, you know at a 70, 80, 90% moving forward in positive way small issues here and there whichever could come out could arise, I’m not saying that they are there but if anything comes up arise we will accordingly deal with those situations.”
The CM said that law and order is a problem in the past but that is the reason why no investment takes place in the state. “The reason investments didn’t take place because there was no ecosystem. There was not enough support, you can say there was no confidence of the investor, what if we start and what if tomorrow the government is not there anymore, how will we move forward with the things,” he said.
“There are many factors that lead to the confidence of an investor. Does the law and order situation matter, it does matter but is it the only concern, no, it’s not the only concern there are many other factors that are there. Therefore, I want to make it clear that we have taken care of all the different aspects and we’re ensuring that the confidence of an investor is high and they feel happy to come in and invest,” the CM added.