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Shillong June 6: The Meghalaya Legislative Assembly’s committee on environment has asked for closing down of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) at Mawphlang on the ground that sewage treatment plant (STP) of the school has not been made functional.

The committee reported that the entire sewerage of the school are being discharged into a stream that flows down to the reservoir of the Greater Shillong Water Supply Scheme (GSWSS) at Mawphlang dam.

The decision to temporarily close down the JNV Mawphlang was taken at a meeting of the Assembly’s Committee on Environment headed by Independent MLA from Mawphlang constituency; S. K. Sun.

Sun told reporters that officials of the JNV Mawphlang also appeared before the committee and “we have taken a stand that we cannot close down the GSWSS but we can close down the school.” The JNV Mawphlang has around 400 students.

“Until and unless the sewage treatment plant is made functional, they will have to continue giving holiday to students. But they have assured to do it at the earliest possible,” Sun said, while asking the forest and PHE departments to declare Mawphlang reservoir as ‘national wetland’.