SHILLONG: The state government is committed to revive the unfinished Rongai Valley Medium Irrigation Project at Chibinang in West Garo Hills that was stalled due to controversies over payment to contractors and over land acquisition, Cabinet ministers and government officials said in a meeting here on Thursday.
The meeting between PWD Minister Prestone Tynsong, Water Resources Minister Metbah Lyngdoh, Phulbari MLA S G Esmatur Mominin and other government officials discussed on the unfinished project and ways to restart it.
It was decided that Tynsong along with other officials and the local MLA would visit the site for inspection next month to see the possibilities of restarting the project.
Mominin informed that he had taken up the matter with the chief minister and the deputy chief minister and was directed to convene a meeting.
The project was sanctioned in 1990 by the Planning Commission, New Delhi at a cost of Rs 1,630 lakh.
However, according to Mominin the project would now require around Rs 2,000 crore and the Union Water Resources had earlier committed to take up the project when the matter was raised with the Centre by former chief minister Purno Sangma and former minister Munirul Islam Sarkar.
The barrage of the project was completed. But after the project landed in several controversies over the payment of contractors and land acquisition, the work came to a standstill.
“If the project comes through, it will be of great benefit for irrigation not only in the constituency but for the entire state,” Mominin said while adding that the project would also save the area from the onslaught of floods.
