Chief Minister Mukul Sangma today flagged off 20 vehicles under Meghalaya Rural Public Transport Service (MRPTS) scheme for the people of West Garo Hills district at Tura.
The scheme is part of the state government's initiative to provide easy access and connectivity to the people in the rural areas.
Officials of the district administration and the Transport department, local leaders including senior citizens, church leaders and the partners who are managing the service, were among others present during the flagging off ceremony SMELC Building premises.
Addressing the gathering briefly before flagging off the vehicles, the chief minister said that the rural public transport service was launched by government to provide safe and convenient mode of transport to the people of Meghalaya, particularly those in the rural areas.
"There is not enough connectivity for the people in the rural areas who have to travel frequently to the district or sub-divisional or block headquarters or those who have to go to market places for various economic activities. Therefore in order to bridge this gap between availability of transport and demand, we have launched this service", he said.
Sangma also informed that this programme has been launched with the objective of inculcating the spirit of entrepreneurship through the partners.
"Earlier we have seen that ideally such public transport services were run by the transport corporations. But time has come now when government should not do any business. Business should be run by our partners drawn from the community, from the general public," he added.
The chief minister also felt that the inherent desire to become entrepreneurs particularly among the tribal people is missing and therefore there is a need to motivate our people to be self-employed and become successful entrepreneurs.
