SHILLONG, Aug 26: Allotment of stalls in any of the government-owned shopping complexes has never been free from controversies. The allotment of stalls at the MUDA shopping complex led to a lot of heartburn in people who actually wanted to start genuine business there but lost out to others who sub-let their stalls to others.
From RTI queries sought by a youth of Lumsohphoh in August 2020 regarding store allotment at the Polo Municipal Market Complex it seems that things are not in order. The Shillong Municipal Board (SMB) was not forthcoming with the RTI information sought on the allotment of the stalls at the Polo Market Complex. The applicant had to struggle for nearly six months to get the information in bits and pieces.
Revealing that he had filed an RTI on August 5, 2020, Bashembha Sun said that he got the reply from the PIO of the Urban Affairs Department on September 21, 2020.
“I had to make a lot of effort to get the RTI information. But till date I have not received all the information which I had sought,” the Lumsohphoh resident told The Shillong Times.
Sun said that he was asked to get all the detailed information from the Shillong Municipal Board (SMB). According to him, the staff of the SMB tried to avoid him after he filed the RTI. They even hesitated to meet him, citing vague reasons of there being no electricity etc.
He said that the information shared by the SMB was not proper. As per the RTI documents, Sun said that so far only 98 stalls have been awarded out of the total 297 stalls which are there in the Polo Market Complex and that the SMB had claimed that they are not able to allot the remaining stalls since they are yet to get the electricity connection.
Sun said that it is still not clear what criteria were followed in the allotment of stalls in that market.
“I was only told that people who already had a shop along the roadside were allotted a stall. But I am not convinced since there are only 98 people who had shops earlier. What about the remaining 199 stalls,” he questioned.
Meanwhile, Sun claimed that he was prompted to file this RTI after he was told that people have been offering up to Rs 5 lakh for each stall.
“I had gone along with four friends to find out the procedure to apply for allotment of stalls. But we were shocked to be informed by one of the staff of the SMB that people are ready to pay Rs 5 lakh to be allotted a stall,” Sun said.
Sun also revealed that as per the RTI, there are individuals who were allotted two stalls and even some SMB staff had also been allotted stalls.
Interestingly, Sun also revealed that he had been informed that former Minister AL Hek was planning to occupy the top floor of the shopping complex but he could not verify the information.
It may be recalled that the multi-storied Polo Shopping Complex aimed at removing the ugly roadside stalls and creating 297 sleek shops, was inaugurated in August, 2020 by then Urban Affairs Minister Hamletson Dohling.
The project which was started on March 1, 2017 was to be completed in December 2019 at a sanctioned cost of Rs 21.41 crore.
The Polo Market complex is a state-of-the-art building designed to rehabilitate road side vendors and hawkers of Polo Bazaar. At the time when the market was proposed to be built at Polo, the then Chief Minister, Mukul Sangma has said it would be Meghalaya’s version of Ney York’s Times Square.
The market complex has a range of stalls from vegetable, to fish and all kinds of meat stalls, tea stalls, grocery stores, betel nut shops, etc. On the inaugural day, the agreement deeds and shop keys were handed out to a few of the shopkeepers.
