Shillong, Jan 11: With a view to ensure ease of doing business in Meghalaya, the state government has decided to increase the period of license renewal for factories to 10 years.
Announcing approval to the proposal of amendment to Meghalaya Factories Rules, 1980 after a cabinet meeting held at Sohra on Friday, chief minister Conrad Sangma said, “This is being done in line with Government of India’s ease of doing business provisions where (validity of) certain licenses, which have to be renewed on an annual basis, should be extended up to 10 years.”
However, the chief minister assured of conducting regular checks and monitoring by the government on the beneficiary factories.
“Accordingly, in those factory licenses, we have made those amendments as per recommendations of Government of India in line with ease of doing business provisions,” he added.
Women in night shifts
The chief minister also informed that a new provision was also included allowing women to work in night shifts while following all security measures.
“Earlier, there was no permission for women to work in night shifts and the Government of India as per ease of doing business provisions has asked different states to amend that law,” Sangma said.
“In the North East, Assam has done it and we are the second state to do it today,” he said.
The around 25 security measures for women to be allowed to work in night shift include CCTV cameras and special monitoring mechanisms.
6-month leave for organ transplantation
The state government on Friday decided to provide additional leave of six months for government employees undergoing organ transplantation.
“We will give an additional leave up to six months for that particular operation or that particular transplantation to take place,” chief minister Conrad Sangma said after the state’s first cabinet meeting at Sohra on Friday.
He, however, clarified that this provision is for “very complicated and very specific cases” and based on humanitarian ground.
“In situations like these, they need time to recover… Very few cases have come up, and I do hope and pray no cases come up but even one case like this is important where we need provision in the rules so that there is no ambiguity in the future,” he said.
