SHILLONG, March 25 - Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma has informed the State Assembly that 15 polluting industries identified in the State have been asked to control the emission of pollutants.
These industries are polluting the environment beyond the permissible limit and therefore have to set up effluent treatment plants, within the next three months, as directed by Supreme Court, he added.
Replying to the discussion on the Budget in the ongoing budget session of the State Assembly, Sangma also said that a Corpus fund has been created to meet the various committed liabilities of the State Government. The State has been facing problems in paying the scholarship of the students, salaries of teachers and wages due to non-availability of fund.
Therefore, the Government has come up with the innovative idea in creating the Corpus to pay the scholarship of the students in time, if the fund is delayed by the Union Government.
He further informed the House that the total revenue collection from coal, during the last five years, was to the tune of over Rs 1,491.64 crore, while replying to a question raised by Opposition member, Metbah Lyngdoh.
To another question, Minister for School Education and Literacy, Deborah C Marak informed that there were 97, 089 school dropouts in the State during the last five years.
Responding to the question by treasury bench member, Dikkanchi D Shira, Marak informed that during 2013-14 there were 33,557, in 2014-15 there were 31,276, in 2015-16 there were 14,957 and in 2016-17 there were 17,299 school dropouts.
She also said that the state Government has taken various programmes to tackle this problem by initiating the schemes like the Initial Special Training Programme for providing education to school dropouts.
