Meghalaya Chief Secretary D.P. Wahlang announced that President of India Droupadi Murmu will visit Shillong on January 9 to inaugurate the golden jubilee celebrations of ICAR and the Farmers’ Expo. “President of India Droupadi Murmu is visiting Shillong on 9th January. She’s coming basically to inaugurate the golden jubilee celebrations of ICAR and also the Farmers’ Expo, which will be held on the 9th. This will happen between 11:30 AM and 2:30 PM. She’ll be landing in Umroi and will have the function in the ICAR complex only. So, she is not traveling to Shillong City, and after the function, she should go back to Guwahati,” he said.
Wahlang also highlighted that following the President’s visit, the Meghalaya cabinet, along with senior officers, will head to Sohra for a two-day cabinet retreat. “Then on the 9th evening, the members of the cabinet as well as senior officers will be heading towards Sohra. In Sohra, on the 10th, that is the next day, we’ll be starting with the cabinet meeting at 12 noon for about a couple of hours. After the cabinet meeting, there will be a cabinet retreat in which all the departments will sit together with the members of the cabinet and give a presentation on the way forward for 2025—what are the plans, what are the schemes, what are the objectives that departments want to meet for the year 2025. So, this will be a two-day retreat on the 10th and also a full day on the 11th.”
During the retreat, the cabinet will meet self-help groups in rural areas, including Nongriat and Laitkynsew, to understand their initiatives. “The cabinet will also be meeting members of the self-help groups in the rural areas. They will go deep inside towards the Nongriat side, Laitkynsew side, meeting self-help groups in that area in the morning of the 11th, come back, and again resume the meeting with the various departments,” he added.
Wahlang explained that the retreat aims to enhance coordination between the administration and the political leadership. “The overall objective and intention is basically to speak in one language, both from the political side and the administration, to understand what the departments are going to do for this coming year, 2025. There should not be any missing gap, there should not be any misunderstanding, and all speak in one language. These are the goals that we have in mind for this year. It’s more of a confidence-building exercise, and the officers would like to show what they would like to do for their departments, and the ministers will also share the overall policy plans that they have.”
He further added that this year’s retreat will include discussions on outcomes from the Chief Secretaries’ Conference chaired by the Prime Minister in December. “As of now, we are having it for this year only. I’m sure that if it works out fine, next year we’ll continue with it. More importantly, we are also going to discuss the outcome of the Chief Secretaries’ Conference, which happened in the month of December. Whatever we discussed at the highest level, chaired by the Honorable Prime Minister, the same message will go towards this meeting. It’s about communication, right from the top, right up to the bottom of the ladder,” Wahlang concluded.