In a move aimed at tightening internal security while sustaining the State’s booming tourism sector, the Meghalaya Cabinet has decided to revisit and strengthen the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act (MRSSA). The State Government also announced plans to make tourist registration mandatory through its tracking app and to recruit 100 multilingual ‘tourist buddies’ to support the growing footfall across destinations. The measures come in the aftermath of the Sohra incident, with the Government keen to balance safety and hospitality in the hill State.
MDA Spokesperson and Cabinet Minister Paul Lyngdoh on Friday said, “The Cabinet today also decided to revisit the MRSSA which is already an existing State act to add more teeth to this act on view of what we have just experienced at Sohra and to ensure that we minimize the possibility of the criminal elements entering Meghalaya in the disguise of tourists.”
On the demand for the Inner Line Permit (ILP), he said, “As far as the ILP is concern let me remind you that the state Assembly has already adopted a resolution, the matter is pending before the Ministry of Home Affairs which has a number of queries which we as the state Government are trying to address.”
The Minister also added, “Some of these queries related to the fact that Meghalaya is not an end point, we are also connecting with the rest of the North East like Silchar and the states of Mizoram and Tripura, so there are certain queries but if you go through the MRSSA there is already a lot that is already in place but we need to upscale and further improve on this. So we will come up with a formal proposal.”
Lyngdoh said the State would now enforce full compliance with its digital tourist tracking system. “We already have a tourism app which records all the movement of tourists including the cars or whatever mode of transport they use and also with compulsory registration of all the visitors at various homestays, resort and hotels, now, the use of this app is roughly around 50 percent, but we will now make it compulsory that all homestays, resorts and other places of accommodation should register all visitors mandatorily.”
Despite recent developments, tourism in Sohra remains strong. “As we speak the footfall in Sohra itself is increasing, there are more and more visitors and even when the case was still not solve the footfall was still the same. Now with the name of Meghalaya being vindicated and clear we are not seeing more footfall and we expect this will touch 20 lakhs by cherry blossom festival,” he said.
On the employment front, he said, “We have already issued a notice calling for interested youth who are fluent in Khasi, Garo, English and Hindi to join as the tourist buddy scheme and within the next two months we should be able to clear the appointment of 100 tourist buddies.”
