Meghalaya government has sought assistance from the central government to ensure completion of the Meghalaya assembly building construction at Mawdiangdiang.
Assembly speaker Methbah Lyngdoh, along with chief minister Conrad Sangma, on February 8 called on Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla in New Delhi and informed him about the financial constraints being faced during construction of the building.
“We met the Lok Sabha speaker and gave an update on the construction of the Meghalaya assembly building. We apprised him about the constraints being faced during construction of the assembly building,” Lyngdoh said.
Construction of the Meghalaya legislative assembly building began in June 2019 at 80 acres of land at Mawdiangdiang. The building is being built at a cost of Rs 127 crore and the construction work is being undertaken by Uttar Pradesh-based Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd.
Chief minister Conrad Sangma wants construction of the building to be completed by March this year or latest by the end of 2022, the year when Meghalaya will celebrate its 50th year of statehood.
Though the project cost was estimated at Rs 145 crore, but the quotation that came from the Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Limited was Rs 127 crore.
Lyngdoh said the state government is stressed and therefore the chief minister has sought the central government’s intervention so that the work is completed on time.
Further, the assembly speaker informed that the state government has invited the Lok Sabha speaker to visit the state and so tentatively the Lok Sabha speaker assured that he would be visiting this February.
The 125-year-old Burmese teak building at Khyndai Lad was reduced to ashes fire on January 9, 2001.
The historical structure made of Burmese teak in Gothic style by the British before Independence, also had the privilege of hosting the historic South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) ministerial meeting in 1986.
From March 2001, assembly sessions have been held at the state’s central library auditorium and later, shifted to arts and culture auditorium within the premises of Brookside, the house where Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore began writing his “Shesher Kobita” in 1919.
