GUWAHATI:
More than 40 thousand people from 105 villages in and around Dainadubi staged non-cooperation against the state government demanding the creation of a community and rural development (C&RD) block at Dainadubi in Meghalaya’s East Garo Hills district on December 6.
Daibadubi wore a deserted look on Tuesday as all the government offices, including schools were closed in response to the call for non-cooperation.
The non-cooperation movement, in which all sections of people of the locality including government employees took part, disrupted the normal functioning of government offices.
The functioning of the public sector banks is also partially affected due to the non-cooperation.
“Seven government offices, including the public works department (PWD), public health engineering (PHE) department, and Seed Farm were closed due to the non-cooperation of the people of the locality,” said J Momin, president, Dainadubi C&RD Block Demand Committee.
Apart from local people, all the representatives of non-government organizations (NGOs) of Dainadubi area took part in the agitational programme. The functioning of the banks was also affected due to the strike, Momin said.
Dainadubi C&RD Block Demand Committee has been demanding the creation of a C&RD block by curving out 54 villages from the existing Kharkutta C&RD Block and 51 villages from the existing Resubelpara Block.
“We demand the C&RD Block for 6,488 families of 105 villages with a total population of 47,501. The location is 30/40 km off the headquarters of both Kharkutta and Resubelpara Block,” Momin further said.
“Since 2018, we have been demanding and submitting many memorandums to our Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, but he did not hear or not fulfil our demand. We also organized public rallies many times but all are vain. On November 17, we organized another public rally and staged a sit-in demonstration on NH-62. On that day, we served an ultimatum to the government for the creation of the C&RD Block within November 30,” he said.
However, the government did not respond to the demand of the organizations within this stipulated time.
“We held a public gathering on December 1 in which we unanimously resolved to go with 24-hour non-cooperation on December 24 to pressurize the government for fulfilling our demand,” he also said.
“If we do not receive any positive response from the government, we will go for another round of protest soon,” he added.