Shillong: The Meghalaya government should open more trade routes connecting villages across the international border with Bangladesh to improve livelihood of the people living on the border, Opposition UDP on Friday said.
"The government needs to link borders with good roads. As of now, there is a lot of handicap. There is no initiative to link trade with good roads," United Democratic Party chief and Opposition Leader Donkupar Roy said, while debating on Governor`s address on the second day of the first budget session of the ninth Assembly.
Citing that there were large deposits of limestone in Nongjri and Umniuh villages just 200 metres of the zero line along the International border, Roy said there is a good road about 300 metres on the other side of border.
He, however, expressed regret that there is no road linking across the border for trade.
Roy represents Shella, a border constituency, which also houses Lafarge`s limestone mines for their cement plant in Bangladesh`s Chattak.
Noting that Bangladesh is a growing economy which imports clinkers from South East Asian countries for their cement plants, Roy said with improved roads, "They (Bangladesh) could import from us (Meghalaya)."
Roy also said that a lot of MLAs in Meghalaya lost in the elections due to bad roads.
"Bad roads make it extremely difficult to reply to the people during elections," he said.
PTI
