SHILLONG: Meghalaya’s Tourism Minister Metbah Lyngdoh said the construction work of Crowborough Hotel in Shillong was in progress, the project was conceptualised 31 years ago.
Raising queries as well as providing the background on the matter, Independent MLA SK Sunn asked on the disputes and differences between the parties.
To this Lyngdoh said there was delay in payment of outstanding before 2015 which was supposed to be paid in installment.
Asking on the opinion of the department on the physical progress and whether the lessee can complete the project by October 2019, Lyngdoh said he would call review meeting as far as construction of the hotel was concerned and maintained that the construction should be completed.
To a query on the physical progress of the work under the M/s SA Builder and M/s Astra Construction, Lyngdoh said two floors were completed by M/s SA Builder and seven floors were completed by M/s Astra Construction which comes to a total of nine floors.
He added the present lessee of the hotel, Leslee Shylla has to complete eight economic rooms, standard rooms, five suites, one banquet hall, one coffee shop, general store, employees’ area, administrative office, parking, basement.
Sunn stated that the government had to scrap the agreement with M/s SA Builders on June 23, 1989 and awarded to M/s Astra Construction on September 30, 1996 whose agreement was scraped by the government on September 30, 1996 after both the firms failed to meet the deadline.
He added consequent upon the scrapping, the two firms approached the court against the decision of the government with further led to the delay in completion of the project.
Sunn added that the government and the two firms finally agreed to have an out of court settlement which resulted in government paying additional amount of Rs 1.94 crore to M/s SA Builders and Rs 1.3 crore to M/s Astra Construction as compensation.