MEETING INSIDE CAVE

Maldives held its cabinet meeting underneath the pristine Indian Ocean, Nepal atop the sun-kissed Mt. Everest and now Meghalaya’s tourism department officials held theirs inside a dimly-lit cave!
Tourism officials, village council heads, NGOs, tour operators and taxi drivers huddled deep inside the Syndai or Jogindra Cave in Jaintia Hills along the Indo-Bangla border on Tuesday with only solar lanterns and Dongmusas (lighted bamboo torches) as accompaniments during the meeting.
The conference room was of impressive proportions, 25 meter height and 30 meter width, architected with stalactites and stalagmites. This place was the favoured hideout for erstwhile Jaintia royals in times of war for strategising and regrouping.
Tuesday’s meeting, however, was no secret. Journalists from print and visual media covered the meeting and the cave reverberated with ideas and discussions of all the stakeholders on how best to promote tourism in Jaintia Hills district, having the longest cave in Asia and perhaps in the world.
“We met to promote tourism, but it was also an effort to draw attention on the issue of cave preservation and how the caves can augment income for the locals through adventure tourism,” Barnari Mawlong, Amlarem’s Additional Deputy Commissioner, who chaired the meeting and brain behind the unique convergence, told the Assam Tribune.
Many of the caves in Jaintia Hills are under threat due to rampant unscientific mining by cement plants in the district. Krem Lait Phrah-Um Im-Labit in the district has been mapped as one of the longest caves in Asia by speleologists, but the cave is under threat due to limestone mining in the area.
The Meghalaya Adventurers’ Association filed a writ petition recently in the Supreme Court, which in turn directed that a team of experts be appointed to assess whether increasing industrial activity was threatening the caves in Jaintia Hills.
The organisation so far has registered and recorded over 1000 caves in Meghalaya of which 520 caves has been mapped yielding a cave passage of 280 km.
The unique meeting had an immediate bearing with forest and environment minister, RC Laloo saying: “these caves need to be protected; we are looking in terms of strengthening the forest and environment department.