Shillong, Sept 24: The Shillong Tech Park-II should not be simply seen as an IT park, but as a technology and innovation park, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said while opening the Park at New Shillong Township on Wednesday.
He said he wanted Shillong to be known as a place where innovation leaders meet and ideas take shape.
That vision stretches beyond traditional IT companies, he said, with entrepreneurship and innovation forming part of a broader technology ecosystem.
His vision is for Shillong to become a centre of excellence for the Northeast, BIMSTEC and Southeast Asia, bringing in people not just to work in technology but to develop solutions that others can replicate.
“Today, the government is one of the largest consumers of technology itself,” Sangma said, suggesting that solutions developed in Meghalaya could eventually be replicated by other states.
But people, he said, would be central to the technology push.
“Almost half of the state’s population is below 20 and only five to six lakh people are above 45,” he said.
“So we have a lot of young people who are already doing everything with the latest trends and are tech-savvy.”
The government hopes to build on that through the Meghalaya State Skill Development Society and the Meghalaya Skills programme, the state’s first government engineering college and a Skill University to come up adjoining the Tech Park.
But, Sangma said, the government should not attempt to train youngsters in every subject.
Instead, he called for stronger collaboration with companies, with courses designed around actual market needs and specific skill shortages.
“People are one of the significant areas of IT development,” he said.
For the Chief Minister, technology is only one element in a much larger economic ecosystem.
He mentioned the new Secretariat and administrative city in New Shillong, a new football stadium being constructed at a cost of Rs 700 crore, an emerging hospitality sector and improved air and road connectivity.
The pitch also ties into what Sangma called policy stability.
Meghalaya, he said, is 54 years old and has experienced 27 governments, some of which survived for less than a month.
The present government has completed its eighth year in office, which he described as the longest continuous government in the state’s history.
“Meghalaya’s economy has more than doubled since 2018, and we have set ourselves a target to double it again by 2032,” he said.
Sangma credited some of his ideas to a trip to Berkeley in 2018-19, where he met industry leaders who are now investing in Meghalaya.
He also highlighted the importance of discipline and professionalism, using the day’s programme to illustrate his point.
“I was at this venue at 4.15 pm for 4.30 pm and I started walking at 4.29 pm so we could start on time,” he said.
As for the agreements signed at the Tech Park, Sangma said he wanted fewer announcements and more tangible measures of actual investment and jobs.
“I’m against MoUs which are often false promises. This is real. The signing of the agreement is real. The jobs we are creating are real.”
“We don’t want big stories and big MoUs. We will do few things but do them well.”
The vision, then, is much more than positioning Shillong as a new city of IT firms.
The goal is to develop the city into a hub where people, ideas and startups can come together — and where solutions developed from the hills can scale far and wide.
