Indian Mountain Initiative wins strong endorsement of stakeholders

GANGTOK, 27 May: Meghalaya MP Thomas A Sangma committed to campaign for Indian Mountain Initiative (IMI) along with fellow Parliamentarian from Sikkim PD Rai at the national level. The Rajya Sabha member from Meghalaya was speaking on the concluding day of the ‘2nd Sustainable Mountain Development Summit’ of IMI here on Saturday.
“I have been raising issues of Meghalaya in the Parliament and speaking for promotion of tourism in the Northeastern region. I will now join PD Rai to convince our fellow Parliamentarians to join the IMI,” Mr. Sangma said.
He committed to take IMI forward in his State and sensitize the people there towards adopting an environment friendly lifestyle. He also informed the gathering about environmental issues affecting Meghalaya.
“Meghalaya is a tourism destination but there has been such extensive environmental damage that I hesitate to invite tourists to my place,” admitted the MP, adding that “unscientific and unregulated coal mining in different parts of our State are taking a huge toll on the environment”.
Mr Sangma pointed out that two types of migration are happening in Meghalaya. “Our youth are migrating to metros for education and livelihood. Environmental refugees from Bangladesh with which we share a 500 km long border are migrating into our hill districts,” he said.
On the occasion, delegates also pledged to introduce IMI to their respective areas and to collectively work towards making IMI an influential body among the policy makers at the Centre. IMI is an idea whose time has come and there is a need for a body like IMI that will promote the interests of the Himalayan States in the Centre, they said.
“We will have to work together to protect the resources of Himalayan region, have sustainable development and network to meet challenges of water security, receding glaciers and mountain livelihood,” the delegates said.
“A message should go to the country that the needs of the Himalayan region should be seen from a mountain-perspective and policies should be tailor-made for hill issues. Our people should be given a chance to raise their problems at the Centre. IMI is the model platform for this,” the delegates said.
IMI is a civil society movement that aims to bring stakeholders of the mountain and hill States on a common platform to come together to discuss issues related to the development of the mountains and hill regions and communities, evolve consensus on priorities and action plan.