Shillong, Nov 21: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Sunday informed that Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan has assured support for technological investment to promote Khasi, Garo and other local languages in Meghalaya.

Informing this on Sunday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “He (Pradhan) has assured us full support to promote our languages and all the support required to put technological investment in it (to ensure)…not just Garo and Khasi but all languages of the different tribes are promoted in the state.”

When asked, Sangma said, “Not necessarily just apps but what we are really saying is that technologies are advancing so much that it is possible now to digitize and to use technologies to programme different aspects and create learning tools of different languages.”

“So while we are printing books, the entire scenario in the world has changed with so much technological advancement, so what my plea and suggestion is that we should use more technology in order to get more learning tools to promote all the languages of the state of Meghalaya and also the North East as a whole,” he added.

The Chief Minister said that the Khasi and the Garo languages have been a very long pending demand of the people of the state and the government has also passed the resolution in the House adding “We have been continuously following up with this.”

He however said the Union Minister could not give any specific reply on the demand for inclusion of Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India.

“But the education minister has expressed that all the languages are important and whatever is possible to promote the languages especially the local languages. He has also stressed that the languages in the North East should be given special importance,” Sangma stated.

“So clearly there is a push to ensure that the local languages in the North East are given the importance but of course the inclusion in the Eighth Schedule is something which is at a different level. Altogether there are 40 plus languages that are in the list,” he further added.