Department of Information and Public Relations

Press Release No. 65/15

MEGHALAYA CM ATTENDS TERI WORLD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT AT DELHI

Shillong February 6, 2015: Dr. Mukul Sangma, the CM of Meghalaya, has been invited to participate in the World Sustainable Development Forum organised on 6th Feb 2015 at Delhi. At this world summit, Dr. Mukul stressed on the need for policy makers to adopt a novel approach to ensure that Sustainable Livelihoods are linked to Sustainable Ecology and vice-versa. He felt this could be key for successful Socio-economic transformation which facilitates sustainable growth. The policy makers have long grappled with the challenges of meeting modern infrastructure needs without focussing on the root cause of the so called Migration issue. Now with the cost of climate change issue hanging over us Policy makers need to focus on the synergy between ecology and livelihoods. Stating that he did not believe in grand policy prescriptions he wanted to narrate real life policy initiatives that the Government of Meghalaya has been making in this respect. Drying up of rivers and depleting ground water resources are challenges that policy makers face when looking at livelihoods based on agriculture. If optimal technology solutions are deployed and sustainable ecology becomes the basis for the livelihood then this syncing would provide sustainable solutions.

Another aspect that he stressed upon was the need for Policy makers to actively implement Innovative solutions. The Infrastructure needs for development have a very heavy carbon footprint, to move to a low carbon footprint Policy makers need to take bold decisions to encourage such technology transfer and adoption. Again giving the example of Meghalaya where the state has encouraged green road building technology and was looking at sustainable building solutions he felt that the promotion of innovative technology needed to be backed by robust policy framework for its adoption.

Stressing that the Road to Adoption of Innovation was never easy he said it was an area where the political will to implement Appropriate Technology Solutions”. He said he was against pilot projects, experimental technologies should be best left to research Institutes but proven innovative technologies should be provide policy support to rapidly scale their deployment.