Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma inaugurated the Shillong Technology Park | Image: Twitter/Conrad Sangma
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Wednesday inaugurated the Shillong Technology Park in the presence of state Information Technology and Communication Minister Hamletson Dohling and PHE Minister Renikton Lyngdoh.
CM Sangma at the inaugural ceremony said that the Shillong Technology Park will provide a golden opportunity to IT professionals of Meghalaya from across the world to contribute back to their home state.
He said, “I am sure many youngsters working outside Meghalaya would like to return back and work near their homes. I have already announced a vision that in the next 10 years, Meghalaya should be among the top 10 States of India. The success of this Tech Park will propel the realisation of this vision”.
Speaking on the prospect of job creation, the Meghalaya CM said, “Although the first phase building of the Technology Park is going to create employment for more than 1,500 people directly, however, it is estimated that it will generate three times as many jobs indirectly. Shillong Technology Park to bring convergence of different arrays of technology to a single platform, viz. combination of voice, video, data on a single network”.
He further said that the Tech Park will support incubation centres in collaboration with the industry, academia and government stakeholders and invitations had been sent to companies across the country and abroad to come forward and start their operations from Shillong.
The park has been designed based on a plug-and-play model, Sangma informed. He said, “The State government has put impetus in setting up infrastructure in multiple sectors. It has usually been an ISP (Infrastructure, Services, People) approach: set-up the infrastructure, on-board the required services, and empower the people to benefit from the facilities”.
He also said that the first phase of the building was completed and was funded by the state government. The government would encourage the Shillong Technology Park to operate on a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model for the subsequent phases, he added.
“We will set up a single-window mechanism with minimum entry-barriers to on-board companies to operate from the Tech Park. The youths of Meghalaya need not think in terms of either-or viz., continuing in Meghalaya or moving to some other city, but should think in terms of MCQs. This Shillong Tech Park is going to further increase the options for our youth in multiple ways,” he said.
Tweeting about it, CM Sangma wrote, "Pleased to inaugurate the Shillong Technology Park. With 70% population below the age of 35, Meghalaya has tremendous potential in the sector. The Tech Park will create over 1500 jobs & this will channel the momentum of our youth towards a bright Meghalaya in IT @AshwiniVaishnaw".
Notably, construction works of the Tech Park had started in 2019 and it was completed in the record time of 25 months.
