SHILLONG, July 14: The Opposition Meghalaya Pradesh Trinamool Congress (MPTC) on Thursday said the FlyBig ‘misadventure’ by the NPP-led MDA government, which cost the state more than Rs 2 crore, was the icing on the cake for the incapability shown by the Transport department. The party asked Transport Minister Dasakhiatbha Lamare to own moral responsibility and resign.
“He should step down if he cannot fulfil the responsibility and mandate given by the people. The Chief Minister should hand over the department to someone more capable,” Opposition chief whip and AITC legislator George B Lyngdoh told The Shillong Times.
Despite demanding the minister’s resignation, Lyngdoh was sure that Lamare would not step down.
“I think they will just come out with another excuse,” he added.
Listing out the significant failures of the Transport department, the MPTC leader said the inter-state bus terminus at Mawiong was in a mess due to the shoddy construction work, operation of illegal weigh bridges across the state, lack of monitoring of overloaded trucks, illegal increase of the height of carriages of vehicles and unchecked vehicular pollution across the city.
“All of these are the responsibility of the Transport department which they have failed to check. And now the icing on the cake is that they have drained Rs 2 crore which shows that they are incapable of carrying out their responsibility,” he said.
Pointing out that FlyBig started its operation only from Shillong airport after it got its license from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation without having a fleet of its own and relying on an aircraft leased from SpiceJet, Lyngdoh said, “That itself increased the operating cost of the airline …They lacked experience as they had just got their operating license and in terms of expanding their activities and ensuring a smooth ride for passengers they failed to do it.”
The MPTC leader disclosed that they had learnt from insiders that the initial flyers were mostly relatives and family members of the employees and managing staff of FlyBig, and said: “In spite of us highlighting this problem on the floor of the House the government still went ahead and gave FlyBig another opportunity.”
