SHILLONG: Meghalaya has little to cheer about when it comes to major projects, which either remained incomplete or failed to take off.
Some of the projects, like the Shillong medical college and hospital and the Assembly building, have seen inordinate delays and uncertainty looms large.
The Shillong medical college and hospital project is lingering on for years with no concrete direction on whether it will ever see the light of day.
All these years, the government was contemplating construction at the site of the tuberculosis hospital at Mawprem and even the foundation stone was laid in 2017 but the new government has decided to shift the medical college to Umsawli and the actual physical construction work of the project despite several delays of years is far from being started.
The cancer wing located at Shillong Civil Hospital is another on the list of delayed projects. It started in March 2011 but till date the project remains incomplete. The physical construction of the building is complete but when the cancer wing will actually start functioning is not known despite the fact that the cases of cancer is on the rise in the state.
The Inter-state Bus Terminus (ISBT) in Tura has been completed more than a year ago but till date there is no word from the government as to when the ISBT will be open.
Similar is the case with ISBT Shillong and though the project has been delayed for long, construction work is still on and there is no definite date as to when the bus terminus will be fully completed.
The Shillong International Centre for Performing Arts has also not been completed.
There is a growing demand for making Shillong and Baljek airports functional at the earliest and the former has seen some development thanks to the intervention of the High Court of Meghalaya.
The much hyped inauguration of Udaan scheme has not paid any dividend for Shillong as hardly any flight took off or landed from the airport.
Though road projects worth more than Rs 12,000 crore have been sanctioned for Meghalaya in the recent years, work has not started. Earlier this year, Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the Jowai-Ratacherra road project from Shillong.
As the state is preparing for the National Games 2022, time is running out for the government to build infrastructure and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had recently sanctioned Rs 350 crore for the project.
For Shillong city, the only positive point was overlaying of major roads.
The city continues to bear the brunt of traffic congestion and there is no solution in sight to the problem. The issue of rehabilitation of hawkers also hangs fire.
As far as street lighting is concerned, there is not much improvement though the government has installed few lights on the stretch from Police Bazar to Motphran.
Even many residents in Shillong, especially in Jhalupara, continue to suffer owing t scarcity of water as water is supplied in the area only once in a day due to reported fault in the pipelines. But the Greater Shillong Water Supply Scheme remains a non-starter and even authorities cannot give any time frame.
