Meghalaya to soon announce IT policy for attracting investments: CM Sangma

The Meghalaya government will soon announce an IT policy which will benefit investors and create employment opportunities in the state, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said on Friday.

Addressing a programme here, he said investors will be provided incentives in terms of capital investment, GST and electricity tariff, among others, under the policy.

"We are on the verge of announcing the IT policy. It has taken us about a year's time, and we had elections in between. We are waiting for the final comments from the Industries Department, and within a couple of weeks, maximum of three weeks, we will roll out the IT policy," he said.

Under the CM-ELEVATE program, the state government plans to provide financial support to 20,000 startups and businesses, including those in the IT sector, in the future, Sangma said.

"We feel the government should provide subsidies to such industries that give direct benefit to our people in terms of employment, rather than giving benefits to large industries that do not give us the returns and are not productive enough," he added.

The chief minister said the government wants to encourage investments in food processing that will help farmers, investments in IT projects that will create jobs for the state's youths, and investments in tourism.

Sangma said the government will set up a data centre in state capital Shillong.

A fibre optic network will be built to connect all community and rural development blocks, he said.

The chief minister said 1,000 new mobile towers are being installed across the state, besides the fibre optic line from Chittagong in Bangladesh to Guwahati in Assam via Meghalaya.

"If this happens, this will benefit us as it will lower the costs and improve the quality of data," he said.