SHILLONG: 13 years after the heritage Assembly building was gutted by fire, the Assembly Secretariat and the Government is still searching for a site to construct the new building.
With the 13th anniversary of the destruction of the old Assembly building falling on Thursday, there is no head way as far the construction of the new House is concerned.
With the Meghalaya Speaker AT Mondal seeking land from the State Government to construct the new Assembly building, the Government said that the High Power Committee will have to take a decision in this regard.
The Deputy Chief Minister Rowell Lyngdoh said that the Speaker had been asking the Government to provide land and the Government is finding out ways and means to allot land to construct the Assembly which has been pending for the last several years.
Earlier the Speaker said that he had written to the State Government to provide land to construct the new Assembly building at the earliest.
It was on January 9, 2001 that the old Assembly building at Kyndai Lad was gutted by a devastating fire.
The exercise to select a site began soon after the Assembly was gutted by fire, but in vain.
There were only controversies related to the construction of the Assembly over the years as whenever a new Speaker and new Government assumed office, a new site was selected.
Soon after the fire incident, Government decided to construct the new Assembly at the old site at Khyndai Lad.
Following the decision, it was during the tenure of ED Marak as the Speaker in 2002 that the construction work was allotted to one C Pala without calling tender. Later, soil testing was also done at the Khyndai Lad site.
In 2004, the then Chief Minister DD Lapang made a move to construct the new Assembly at Mawdiangdiang, and land was also allotted at the new Shillong township.
However, a resolution was taken up and passed in the Assembly against the move to construct the new Assembly to Mawdiangdiang. Both the ruling and the Opposition members were against construction of Assembly at Mawdiangdiang. Again in 2006, another site was selected at Upper Shillong and the then Meghalaya Governor MM Jacob on December 8, 2006 laid the foundation stone for the building at Upper Shillong when MM Danggo was the Speaker. The cost for laying foundation stone was Rs 33 lakh which had come under the scanner of Comptoller and Auditor General of India.
When the non -Congress parties, NCP and UDP formed the government in 2008, the High Power Committee chaired by the then Speaker Bindo Lanong favoured the construction of the Assembly at Khyndai Lad.
However, a year later, when the Congress-led coalition government came into power, there was a decision to construct the House at Tara Ghar, though there was stiff opposition from pressure groups citing destruction to greenery and heritage building.
After the Meghalaya High Court stalled the move to construct the House at Tara Ghar following a PIL, the Government has decided to opt for other sites.
