SHILLONG, Nov 17: Those who have the bad fortune of having to travel on the road to Union Christian College – Mawlyndep and beyond struggle to make it to their destinations. The road has been in a dilapidated condition for years. Yet that area around the UCC also has some of the leading institutions, hotels and guest houses apart from also including land belonging to the political elite of Meghalaya.
The land around the Umiam Lake has a noted resort Ri Kynjai, a renowned Catholic Institution – Siloam, an institution of the Jesuits, The Ferrando Institute for the hearing impaired, amongst others.
People of Mawlyndep Village have informed this reporter that pregnant women in labour have had a difficult time while being taken to hospital on this crater-laden road. The reason why the road is in such a wretched condition is because of overloaded coal trucks travelling through this road which was not meant to take their load.
To find out why this road has been left unrepaired for such a long time, The Shillong Times spoke to a senior official of the State PWD who informed that the upgradation of Mawmaram-Nongthliew-Mawmih-Mawlyndep road under the World Bank funded Meghalaya Integrated Transport Project (MITP) has already taken off.
The PWD official said that the upgradation of this 41.527-km road beginning from Mawmaram up to the North East Police Academy (NEPA) junction will be taken up soon. The timeline to complete this project taken up under Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) mode will be 42 months from the date of commencement of the work.
Informing that the tender value of this project is Rs 81.16 crore the official informed that the tender was floated on November 25, 2020 and the last date for submission of the bidding documents was fixed for December 21 of the same year.
According to the official, a total of three parties participated in the bidding and the work was finally awarded to Ms Tanor Engineering and Sunshine Sawkmie who was the lowest bidder at Rs 64.12 crore.
The agreement with the selected firm was signed in July this year.
With the project being implemented under EPC mode, the official said that the contractor cannot start implementing the project immediately like other projects where the tender is invited on an item rate basis.
“The process under the EPC mode is quite lengthy. The Department will first need to hand over the land to the contractor and this was done on July 26 this year,” the official informed, adding that the contractor would then need to appoint his own consultant after taking possession of the land.
According to the officer-technician, the consultant approved by the Department would need to carry out the survey and then prepare the design and drawing of the project after which that would be submitted to the authority engineer appointed by the Department.
“The authority engineer will go to the site to check each and every detail before approving the design and drawing. It is only then that the firm can start the implementation of the project,” the PWD official said. He also added that a lot of activities are already going on which are not reflected at the site. The contractor is now constructing the temporary residence for the labourers and the laboratory at Laitarted in the newly-created Eastern West Khasi Hills District. The contractor has already started shifting utilities like electric poles etc.
The official also clarified that for any tender which is on item rate basis, the contractor can start the work within ten days from the day of issue of the work order.
He further informed that this is the only project under MITP which is under EPC mode while all other projects are on item rate basis.