SHILLONG, Nov 9: The state government has decided to come up with a State Literary Award for Authors as part of its endeavour to promote Khasi and Garo indigenous languages of the state.

The Annual Meghalaya Literary Award for Authors will include one award for Khasi authors and one for Garo authors and will extend a cash award of ₹1 Lakh each.

— Conrad Sangma (@SangmaConrad) November 9, 2022

Speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “Apart from the resolution that we have passed in order to push the Government of India to include Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule and apart from other supports that we’re giving to ensure that we promote the languages, this is one more step towards promoting our languages.”

He said the annual state literary award for authors for local language will include one award in Khasi and one in Garo with a cash reward of Rs.1 lakh each.

“Every year, there will be a committee which will be headed by the director which will screen different nominations that may come in and people can self-nominate as well as others can also nominate them. After screening, the committee will then propose a list to the government,” he said.

When asked why not for Jaintia language, the CM however said, “Well right now we have pushed for Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule and hence these are the two languages that have been pushed. We are going forward with the recommendations that we can put in our resolution that we had passed in the assembly.”

Stating that all the languages are very important for the government, Sangma assured that, “we will do our best to promote all the languages but as I said the resolution has been passed for the two languages and hence we are starting with these two.”