KSU demands Govt to revoke Investment Promotion & Facilitation Act, 2024

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaDecember 12, 2024

The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on Thursday demanded the state government to revoke the amendment of the Meghalaya State Investment Promotion and Facilitation Act, 2024 for empowering the Investment Meghalaya Agency (IMA) to purchase and provide land to investors as it is totally against the spirit of the Meghalaya Land Transfer Act.

Addressing media persons, KSU general secretary Donald V Thabah said, “We would like to send a clear message to the state government that it should come out clean on this and how it will benefit the people of the state. If the government cannot do that, then it should repeal or revoke this Act.”

He said that the Government of Meghalaya has amended the Meghalaya State Investment Promotion and Facilitation Act 2024, thereby giving powers to the Investment Meghalaya Agency (IMA) to purchase land and give land to investors or companies, which is not clear whether they are from outside or from within the state.

“What we can understand here is that such an amendment is not in line with the Meghalaya Land Transfer Act. The Meghalaya Land Transfer Act is there to protect the land rights of the tribal people, the indigenous tribal people of Meghalaya. But with regard to this act, the IMA will purchase land and hand it over to private investors without consulting the traditional institutions as we know the state also falls under the sixth schedule, without consulting the KHADC, the JHADC and GHADC for that matter,” Thabah stated. 

“Therefore, we from the KSU feels that such an amendment is detrimental to the wellbeing, to the welfare of the tribal indigenous people of Meghalaya and this will also lead to land alienation of the tribal indigenous people. Furthermore, we can see that when they mention the word “investors”, they did not clarify or did not make it clear whether the investors will be tribal local indigenous people or will it be private companies or firms from outside the state. Now, if suppose, private company comes from outside the state and starts investing in our state, who will benefit from that?” he added.

Further, the KSU leader said that the state does not have a policy to ensure unemployed youths, the local indigenous youths will get employment in such private companies unlike other states like Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jharkhand – where they have certain policies whereby private companies investing in their states will have to ensure that 75% of the jobs should be reserved for the local indigenous inhabitants of that state.

“So there are many loopholes within the act and we feel that it will not benefit us and apart from that also, the governing council is being given more or less an absolute power whereby the governing council if there are a few members absent, one or two can decide whom to give the land. And discretionary power is also being given to them whereby they can acquire land without consent of any particular department. And what is even worse we can see is that it has been mentioned clearly in the act that no legal action or lawsuit can be filed against the governing council in case of any discrepancies,” he further observed.