Meghalaya approves amendement of building by-laws for regulating construction in industrial zones

The Meghalaya Cabinet has approved amendments to the Meghalaya Building By-Laws, aimed to regulate building construction in industrial zones statewide, including areas within the New Shillong Township.

The Cabinet endorsed the revised By-Laws, incorporating amendments to streamline industrial zone development and facilitate orderly expansion, effective across all designated industrial zones in the state.

Cabinet minister and MDA spokesperson Paul Lyngdoh, on November 5 said, "This (amendment) is broadly to facilitate the need to categorise the industrial zone to categories earlier not done and also it involves the amendment of the building byelaws for these industrial zones."

"The expansion that is happening currently specially in the new Shillong city has to be planned in a very scientific manner, which is why we need these new sets of byelaws for industrial zones to be in place and these were considered and approved by the cabinet on Tuesday," he added.

According to the minister, the new regulation would be applicable in designated industrial estates across Meghalaya citing that urbanisation is an ever ongoing process and it is expanding.

"There is need to regulate such buildings and therefore, the cabinet decided in view of the growing urbanisation and the emergence of new urban centres so within these industrial zones and estates, the categorisation of these buildings and their applicability of the byelaws will be extended to those industrial zones. These are all for the industrial estates/zones and wherever such activities are taking place so right now new Shillong is the immediate point of attention but it will be across the state wherever such industrial estates are being created," he stated.

The state cabinet also approved the amendment of the Meghalaya Forensic Science Laboratory Rules, 2021 for the creation of more posts in the mobile forensic crime scene units. 

The cabinet approved the proposal to recruit scientific officers, senior scientific assistants, scientific assistants and laboratory assistants across all districts. 

"This is the requirement of the law. To keep the requirement of the law, the government has sanctioned these posts much earlier. This is the requirement of the law and hence the cabinet has moved the amendment to the service rules to include these new posts that have been created to the schedule of the service rules," he said. 

The state cabinet also approved the proposal for the constitution of the Meghalaya Rural Development Services Recruitment Board (MRDSRB) to help with the activities of the C&RD department.

"The members of the service being postgraduates and postgraduate diploma holders from reputed institutes. They will be selected through a rigorous examination process and posted at the blocks as junior rural development officers," he said. (With PTI inputs)