Shillong, May 20: Cabinet Minister Marcuise N Marak has put on hold a proposed visit by the Soil & Water Conservation team to the United Kingdom in line with austerity measures sought by the Prime Minister.
“With regards to austerity measures that the Prime Minister has requested, here in our state also the chief minister has already requested all the ministers to follow the austerity measures,” Marak told reporters on Wednesday.
The minister said the UK trip was planned to study climate-related water projects.
“I was planning to visit the UK with my Soil & Water Conservation team to study climate change issues and also with regards to implementation of climate adaptive committee-based water harvesting project,” he said.
The proposal had been sent to the chief minister for approval, but was stopped after the Centre’s directive.
“We had sent the request to the chief minister also but because of the Prime Minister’s austerity measure call, we were told not to proceed and we were told to keep it on hold,” Marak stated.
He confirmed the State is complying with the directive. “Therefore, we are not going ahead and we have abided by the request of the chief minister,” he said.
