Lapang education bait for Hasina

Meghalaya CM to project opportunities

Sheikh Hasina and D.D. Lapang Shillong, Jan 11 : Chief minister D.D. Lapang will take up the issue of education opportunities in Meghalaya for the students of Bangladesh when he meets the country’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in New Delhi tomorrow. At the state banquet where Lapang has been invited by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the chief minister is likely to discuss with Hasina Shillong-Dhaka bus and air services besides opening of border markets (haats). “Shillong has the best educational institutions in the country and many students from Bangladesh are studying here, but we want to further popularise Shillong as the best education hub in the region to attract more students from Bangladesh,” Lapang told The Telegraph over phone from Calcutta. Lapang said he would project Shillong as the centre of quality education and would impress upon Hasina to take necessary steps to send more students to the educational institutions in Shillong for career-making. He said Meghalaya would explore possibilities of attracting more tourists from Bangladesh as several places of the state are thronged by tourists from that country. “To attract more tourists and students from Bangladesh to Meghalaya, we need to start Shillong-Dhaka bus services as well as Shillong-Dhaka flights,” he said. Lapang, however, stressed infrastructure development to have a regular flow of tourists from Bangladesh. The state government is already in the process of expansion of the existing Umroi airport and once it is ready, the government will explore possibilities of Shillong-Dhaka flights. According to Lapang, he will also take up the issue of opening the markets along the Meghalaya-Bangladesh border at the earliest. Lapang said Bangladesh was keen to revive the traditional border markets to help small traders residing on the border take their goods to the border residents instead of going to the cities. The markets (haats) along the 423km border that Meghalaya shares with Bangladesh once bustled with trade. These traditional markets were closed after Partition and efforts on the part of the state government to reopen these went in vain. The Meghalaya government would explore the possibility of exporting coal in a legal way to Bangladesh, Lapang said. At present, unaccounted quantity of coal is exported to Bangladesh in trucks, causing huge loss to the state’s exchequer. Gogoi for Delhi Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi is leaving for Delhi tomorrow to attend the official dinner hosted in honour of visiting Sheikh Hasina. CMO sources today said the issue of insurgency in the Northeast and trade would figure during informal talks with Hasina, adds a Guwahati reporter.