SHILLONG: The High Powered Committee (HPC) on the construction of new Meghalaya Legislative Assembly building on Thursday awarded the work of construction of new assembly building to a UP based PSU
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said Uttar Pradesh Rajkya Nirman Nigam Limited has been finalized to construct the new assembly building at Mawdiangdiang.
“We now hope that the construction will begin shortly,” he said.
The estimated budget of the new assembly building is Rs 145 crore. However, the firm has quoted Rs 127 crore for the construction of the new assembly building.
The work is supposed to be completed in three years time.
Reacting to a query, the Chief Minister added that the Government would mop up resources from its own sources , central government and different financial agencies for constructing the assembly building.
“We will be looking to get loans from some financial agencies which provides loan at reasonable rates and we have discussed the matter with them and things are at the final stage,” he stated.
The initial funds which would be required for the project will be manage by the State Government.
On the other hand, Opposition leader, Mukul Sangma while expressing happiness over the finalization of the contractor said that the High Powered committee would urge the Government to constitute independent quality monitoring committee to ensure that the quality of the building is looked after even as he added that the committee would frequently visit the site to take stock of the construction of the new Assembly building.
He also expressed confidence that the new assembly building would be constructed before the 2023 assembly elections .
The proposed location of the Assembly building was changed on multiple occasions until the Government finally zeroed down at Mawdiangdiang.
The HPC has already approved the building design and an 80 acre plot was allocated in Mawdiandiang for the project
It may be mentioned that Meghalaya has been awaiting the new Assembly buildingfor the last 17 years after the 125-year-old Burmese teak Meghalaya Legislative Assembly building at Khyndailad was reduced to ashes in a devastating fire.
The HPC of the Meghalaya Assembly in the year 2017 under the previous Government was forced to scrap the tender for construction of the new Assembly building as one of the bidders quoted a rate too low and over 15 per cent lower than the bid value.
Earlier, PWD had opened the price bid after three firms – Simplex Infrastructure Pvt ltd, Gautam construction Pvt ltd and Shapoorji Pallonji Co & Ltd – qualified in the technical bidding.