SHILLONG: Chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, Paul Lyngdoh apprised certain interventions of the state Legislative PAC to the sister committees of PAC and Estimates Committee from Puducherry Legislative Assembly.
Referring to the Abattoir projects of Shillong and Jowai, Lyngdoh said that it was the intervention of the PAC from Meghalaya Legislative Assembly that the projects could see the light of day.
“It was revealed to the Committee that the abattoir project in Jowai in which the contractor and the firm executing the project had been paid over Rs 2 crore as advance in 2012 and when we went visited the site on March 2014, we discovered that barely Rs 7 lakhs was expended on the project,” he added.
However, he informed that the project was nearing completion and it had crossed 90 per cent execution which has happened due to the regular follow up of the PAC, adding that the department concerned has been compelled to submit monthly progress report to the Committee.
The Puducherry delegation were apprised of the problems relating to the Shillong Airport at Umroi which faced unnecessary hurdles due to “lackadaisical attitude of the state government and failure of the various departments in identifying rightful land owners leading to unnecessary delay and Court cases.”
Further, Lyngdoh informed that the sister committees were interested to know about poverty alleviation programmes and the biggest problem which is the road sector.
“The number of villages that have been connected with all weather roads is very limited and is major challenge to good governance to Meghalaya,” he told the sister committees from Puducherry Legislative Assembly.