Meghalaya, Where Forest Covers 76 Per Cent of the Land, Three Tribal Councils Govern Nearly the Whole State and Children Take Their Mother's Clan Name

The Forest Survey of India measures forest cover at 76.32 per cent of Meghalaya’s 22,429 square kilometres, and its state chapter adds that, unlike other States, the forests are largely under community and private ownership. The 2011 Census counted 29,66,889 people, and the census figures below come from that count because the next census is under way. Meghalaya sends 2 members to the Lok Sabha and 1 to the Rajya Sabha.

How Assam’s hill districts became a state on 21 January 1972

Shillong became the capital of Assam under a Chief Commissioner by a proclamation dated 6 February 1874, according to the history of the High Court of Meghalaya on the Supreme Court’s e-Committee site. On 11 September 1968 the Government of India announced a scheme for an autonomous State inside Assam, made up of the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo hill districts. The Constitution (Twenty-second Amendment) Act, 1969, in force from 25 September 1969, added Article 244A, which lets Parliament form an autonomous State within Assam out of tribal areas.

The Assam Reorganisation (Meghalaya) Act, 1969 (Act 55 of 1969) formed it from the United Khasi-Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills districts, and the Constitution’s footnotes date its changes from 2 April 1970. The North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971 (Act 81 of 1971) made Meghalaya a full State on 21 January 1972, with Shillong as its capital. The Khasi Hills council adds that the new State also took in the parts of Shillong’s cantonment and municipality that the autonomous State had not covered.

The district councils are older than the State. The Sixth Schedule, as originally enacted, placed the Khasi-Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills districts of Assam under councils, and the Khasi Hills council’s list of elected members begins in March 1952.

How Meghalaya is governed

Article 168 names the States that have a Legislative Council as well as an Assembly, and Meghalaya is not among them, so the 60-member Legislative Assembly is the whole legislature. The Election Commission’s press note of 18 January 2023 lists none of the seats as reserved for Scheduled Castes and 55 as reserved for Scheduled Tribes, the groups the Constitution lists for special protection. Article 332(3A) governs that reservation until seats are readjusted after the first census taken after 2026. The final roll of 5 January 2023 listed 21,64,973 electors, including 3,844 service voters, and the number of polling stations rose from 3,083 in 2018 to 3,482 in 2023.

An Assembly lasts five years from its first meeting under Article 172(1). The one elected in 2023 followed an Assembly whose term ran from 16 March 2018 to 15 March 2023. The Chief Electoral Officer’s office lists the two Lok Sabha seats as Shillong and Tura, both reserved for Scheduled Tribes, and the Fourth Schedule gives the State 1 seat in the Rajya Sabha. Our explainer on how Lok Sabha seats are shared describes why those counts are frozen.

The State portal’s table, drawn from the Statistical Handbook Meghalaya 2022, lists 12 districts: five in the Garo Hills, five in the Khasi Hills and two in the Jaintia Hills. East Khasi Hills, which holds Shillong, is the most populous at 8,25,922, followed by West Garo Hills, headquartered at Tura, at 4,65,735. The table’s population column adds up to 29,66,889, the 2011 Census count, by tuput’s sum.

The High Court of Meghalaya became a separate court on 23 March 2013, and Chief Justice of India Altamas Kabir inaugurated it in its new building on 25 March 2013. Before that, a permanent bench of the Gauhati High Court sat at Shillong from 1995.

English is the official language under the Meghalaya State Language Act, 2005, which received the Governor’s assent on 1 May 2005. The Act let Khasi be used as an associate official language in district, sub-divisional and block offices in the Khasi and Jaintia hills districts, and Garo in three of the Garo Hills districts, while keeping English alone for civil and criminal courts. Neither language is among the 22 in the Eighth Schedule, which our piece on the Schedules lists.

Three councils under the Sixth Schedule

Article 244(2) applies the Sixth Schedule to Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. The Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council says Meghalaya is the only north-eastern State whose entire area, except the cantonment and municipality of Shillong, falls under it. The table in paragraph 20 names three tribal-area districts for Meghalaya: Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills. The same paragraph says that for several of the Khasi Hills council’s powers, no part of the Shillong municipality counts as part of the district.

Article 243M(2)(a) keeps Part IX of the Constitution, the panchayat chapter, out of Meghalaya, as it does out of Nagaland and Mizoram. Our explainer on panchayats and municipalities covers the system that most States run.

Paragraph 3 lets a council make laws on the management of forest that is not reserved forest, village and town administration, the appointment or succession of chiefs or headmen, the inheritance of property, marriage and divorce, and social customs. Such a law has no effect until the Governor assents. The Khasi Hills council passed its Khasi Social Custom of Lineage Act on 13 March 1997, and the Governor assented on 23 February 2005.

Meghalaya has a rule of its own in paragraph 12A. If a council’s law or regulation on those subjects clashes with a law of the State Legislature, the council’s law is void to the extent of the clash, and the President may direct that an Act of Parliament not apply to a Meghalaya autonomous district or apply with changes. Our account of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules sets that against the rule in Assam. Under paragraph 2(6A), a council’s elected members serve five years from the first meeting, and the Governor may extend that, one year at a time, if circumstances make elections impracticable.

What the economy earns

PRS Legislative Research, using MoSPI figures, puts Meghalaya’s GSDP growth in 2024-25 at 5.5 per cent in real terms, against 6.5 per cent for India. Agriculture, manufacturing and services made up 26, 17 and 57 per cent of the economy. Per capita GSDP was Rs 1,72,929, up 11 per cent on the year, against Rs 2,34,859 for India, so about 26 per cent below the national figure by tuput’s arithmetic.

The budget presented on 23 February 2026 projects GSDP at Rs 76,320 crore for 2026-27, up 13 per cent. Spending excluding debt repayment is Rs 29,292 crore, with a revenue surplus of Rs 4,771 crore (6.3 per cent of GSDP) and a fiscal deficit target of 3.5 per cent. Of Rs 26,583 crore in revenue receipts, Rs 5,354 crore (20 per cent) is the State’s own and Rs 21,229 crore (80 per cent) comes from the Centre, as a share of central taxes and as grants. PRS records Rs 5,572 crore, 19 per cent of spending, set aside for climate action, and six new entrepreneurship schemes under CM ELEVATE that cover green taxis, adventure tourism, polyhouses, cold storage and fish ponds.

What sets Meghalaya apart

The Forest Survey says only 1,113 square kilometres of forest, in reserved and protected forests, national parks and sanctuaries, is under the direct control of the State Forest Department, and that the three councils administer the community and private forests. A State Act of 2012 defines a forest as a compact tract of at least 4 hectares with more than 250 naturally growing trees per hectare that are 15 cm or more in diameter at breast height, or more than 100 naturally growing bamboo clumps per hectare. The Survey also counts 65 Community Reserves. It puts average annual rainfall at 4,000 mm to about 11,500 mm and calls Mawsynram the wettest place on earth. Our piece on the root bridges follows the Khasi and Jaintia custom of growing fig roots into crossings.

Descent runs through the mother. Section 3 of the Khasi Hills Act says a person born of a legal marriage to two Khasi parents is a Khasi of the clan of the mother. The Act describes the youngest daughter, Ka Khun Khadduh, as the family’s custodian of ancestral property. The East Garo Hills administration describes Garo society as matrilineal, with children belonging to their mother’s family unit and the heiress generally the youngest daughter, called the nokna. The Census 2011 table in the Bankers’ Committee booklet gives 989 females per 1,000 males.

What comes next

On 27 April 2026 the Governor promulgated the Meghalaya Official Languages Ordinance under Article 213(1), which lets a Governor issue ordinances while the Assembly is not sitting. It makes English, Khasi and Garo official languages from a date the government will notify, keeps English in the courts and repeals the 2005 Act. Under Article 213(2)(a) an ordinance ceases to operate six weeks after the Assembly reassembles, and EastMojo reported on 25 August 2026 that a Bill to replace it was introduced on the first day of the Autumn session.

Elections to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council were postponed “until further orders” by a gazette notification of 11 March 2026. Scroll reported that the postponement followed violence after non-tribal candidates filed nominations, and that two people were killed on 10 March in suspected police firing. The Governor extended the council’s term from 19 April to 18 October 2026, using the power in paragraph 2(6A), and on 28 September the Meghalaya High Court declined to direct the State to hold the polls, UNI reported. The State government then granted a second six-month extension, and the Garoland State Movement Committee called it “unwarranted, unjustified and contrary to the spirit of democratic governance.”

The census now under way will replace the 2011 count of 29,66,889 people.