Old Picture of Plastic waste floated in Umïam Lake

Shillong July 11: Meghalaya Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma on Thursday discussed with officials of various departments and civil organizations to chalk out measures to ensure cleanliness in and around Shillong city and ways to clean the Umïam Lake.

The Chief Minister sought suggestions from various departments like District Administration, Forest, Shillong Municipal Board, Urban Affairs said that the involvement of the local bodies, institutions and the District Council is important to meet the objective of keeping Shillong clean while stressing on behavioural change from everyone and active public participation.

He said that local bodies and institutions can play a major role in the enforcement of laws, monitoring and spreading the message of cleanliness and waste management.

He informed that the aim of having a clean Shillong would be met more aggressively after the approval of Action Plans by the Central Pollution Board.

On Umïam Lake, the Chief Minister said that the recent picture of the Lake spread via social media is a matter of grave environmental concern and an eye sore.

“Short term and long term measures have to be taken to clean the Lake,” the Chief Minister said while suggesting the need to form a Committee comprising members from the Forest, District Administration, MeECL, Shillong Municipal Board, District Council and Water Resources to work out the mechanisms to clean Umiam Lake.

“While the government will definitely look into long term measures to clean Umiam Lake, it is urgently required to stop further waste being dumped into the lake,” he said.

Meanwhile officials clarified that the picture of the lake was an old one but nevertheless, it is a wakeup call and measures have to be installed to clean the lake and prevent it from getting polluted further.