Shillong, May 23: “The collapse of the dome of the new Assembly building at Mawdiangdiang on Sunday is only a tip of the iceberg of the rot that lies beneath the willy nilly functioning of the present NPP-led government under Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and his Deputy Prestone Tynsong,” alleged P N Syiem, MDC and Working President, Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC).
“The collapsing of the Dome cast serious doubts about the real intentions of the government and the officers who are tasked to carry out infrastructure and other projects. In fact, the people of the State must thank the rain Gods for helping expose the pathetic quality of work in government projects which has been okayed by the present government to contractors of questionable repute,” a statement issued by the Congress leader said in a statement here.
“We are now seeing the actual state of affairs of our roads, buildings and bridges which are cracking and now the prestige of the seat of governance is at stake.” This is, in fact, extremely shameful as never in the history of the State has any infrastructure which houses people’s representatives have been comprised by any government in the past.
“Take the old Assembly building for example, it still is a strong structure or even the present make shift building, but now we have people in the government who are willing to sell the reputation of the State,” he further alleged.
The revelations of the poor quality of work in government projects have left the deputy Chief Minister and the Executive Engineer (PWD, Building) with no other choice to but to play shifting the buck game or find lame excuses.
Soon after leakages and flooding of the ISBT premises, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong refrained from finding flaws with the contractors but fixed the blame on the officers responsible, saying they would be taken to task and we are yet to see any action on the same, then came the collapse of the Assembly dome on Sunday, the Executive Engineer of the PWD (Building), Ransom Sutnga said the dome design was too heavy for the structure which subsequently led to this incident, but this design has been vetted by non-other than one of the best engineering Institution of the country, IIT-Roorkee.
It is also understood that as per the tender clause, there was no scope of subcontracting, but it is evident, the qualifying firm, UPRNN Ltd. had subcontracted the work to BRC Ltd., a construction company from Assam, which has got no experience in Dome Structure building and this firm is executing the work. The shifting the blame to IIT-Roorkee will not augur well for the reputation of the state Department and any lay man can understand that the problem lies with the quality of construction which clearly indicates that the officer responsible is only shying away from his responsibility and allowing rampant poor quality of construction and unprofessional execution of work, maybe he is too busy pleasing his political masters and build up his own political career.
The MPCC Working President has demanded that work on the new Assembly premises be stopped immediately and a reputed competent agency to be entrusted to check the quality of construction and thorough safety audit to be made before further construction. It is time that the people of the State must know what is going on inside this government and how the State exchequer is being robbed in broad daylight and those responsible are getting away scot free.