Shillong Sept 26: The Meghalaya government will convene a meeting with all stakeholders, including political parties to discuss on National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in the state.

In his reply in Assembly, Chief Minister, Conrad K. Sangma said that the Central government has mandated of having the National Population Register (NPR), which envisages a comprehensive electronic database of every usual citizens in the country as the first step for creation of NRC.

The Chief Minister was replying to a short duration discussion on NRC initiated by Opposition Chief Whip, Process Sawkmie.

Stating that NRC is “huge and tedious” exercise, he said, “We need to move forward but it is not something that we can do this exercise tomorrow or day after. It requires huge financial requirements, manpower besides lot of strengthening of departments at various levels.”

Informing that the government’s top priority is to protect the citizens of the state, Conrad said, the state government has decided to strengthen the provisions of the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act, 2016 and the political department was asked to look into this and find out ways how to strengthen the provisions in the Act so that powers are also given to headmen and nokmas to ensure that the indigenous people are protected.

On setting up of entry and exit points to prevent illegal immigrants from entering Meghalaya, Conrad said the process of land acquisition for the locations are already in the advance stage and the construction of the entry and exit points will be taken up in a phase manner in some critical locations.

The Chief Minister also discussed with Railways Minister Piyush Goyal the need to set up entry-exit points at the Mendipathar railway station in Garo Hills to instill confidence on the people of the state so that bigger projects (railway projects) can start in the state.