Next House session in new building: Mondal

SHILLONG: Speaker AT Mondal has expressed optimism that the next house of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly will be from the new building.
“I am 100 per cent sure that the next house (session) will be from the new legislative building,” he said.
Last month, the High Powered Committee (HPC) on new Assembly building decided to scrap the tender for construction at Mawdiangdiang.
The bid value was Rs 105 crore and Shapoorji Pallonji Co. & Ltd quoted 29.92 per cent more. Even Simplex Infrastructure inflated the cost by 21.90 per cent. Gautam Construction on the other hand quoted 15.01 per cent less than the bid value.
The Public Works Department later asked the lowest bidding firm to justify if it could complete the work within the quoted amount and after analysing, the department suggested it was unfeasible considering the escalation of market value and impact of new taxes.
Appreciating PWD’s work, Mondal said the process was delayed as it had to go through a lot of procedures since land was difficult. Besides, transfer of land to the Assembly Secretariat also took time.
However, the Speaker is confident about the new building and accordingly, PWD has been asked to issue fresh tender.
“We were serious and we had also come almost to the level of laying the foundation stone,” he said.
The old Assembly building at Khyndailad was destroyed in a fire in 2001.