Govt unable to acquire land for flyovers
By Our Reporter
Shillong: Hopes for Shillongites to see flyovers in the city is about to come crashing to the ground with the government expressing its inability to acquire land for construction of these flyovers.
“It is difficult to acquire land. Since most of the land belongs to private owners and not the government it might take longer to reach a compromise with the land owners in order to acquire land for the flyovers,” Chief Secretary WMS Pariat said.
The flyover idea was mooted after it was noticed that the traffic congestion in the city has become more of a nuisance causing much difficulty to the people at large. There was hope that construction of flyovers would at least help in easing the problem, but now it seems that the project might not materialize n view of the State Government’s inability to acquire land for the same.
Pariat explained that at present much problems has arisen due to the construction of the bye pass with people’s unwillingness to part with their lands and various other demands and the flyover project will only add up to the problems.
Besides, the Government has also been unable to acquire land from the defence establishment for construction of the flyovers. A proposal forwarded by the State government to the defence authorities is currently pending with the Union Defence Ministry.
However, people are of the opinion that with the construction of flyovers, life would move smoothly as compared to the present situation and at the same add up to the beauty of the city.
“I think, the need of the hour is to have flyovers to ease traffic problems in the city,” a resident of the city told this scribe on Saturday.
Meanwhile, reacting to the traffic problem in the city, the Chief Secretary has stated that increase in the number of cars has added to the problem but this can be solved in due time with the completion of the bypass as trucks would be diverted through the bypass resulting in less congestion in the city and the national highways.