SHILLONG, June 25: Congress MLA from Garo Hills, Saleng Sangma on Sunday questioned the quality of construction work undertaken for government projects that have fallen apart in the last year.
“Before the retaining wall of the PA Sangma Stadium, the Assembly dome collapsed, the ISBT building leaked, and a road in Pynursla collapsed. Who should we blame – the contractor, engineers, or the public which made its choice?” he asked.
Referring to the recent order of the West Garo Hills deputy commissioner asking the contractor to demolish the remaining portion of the retaining wall for building a new wall, Sangma sought to know why a small drain was being constructed for such a huge stadium.
Citing these as examples of poor and shoddy construction, he said several government infrastructure projects have either been damaged or collapsed lately.
“We need to look at it seriously because it is a waste of public money,” he said, adding that the new retaining wall of the PA Sangma Stadium would again be built using public money.
Asking the engineers to supervise the projects judiciously during construction, he said a dam collapsed in his constituency on a bright sunny day. “Such incidents are occurring regularly everywhere in the state,” he added.
Meanwhile, the West Garo Hills police said the collapse of the stadium’s retaining wall is being investigated following the lodging of an FIR.
The district’s Superintendent of Police, Vivekanand Singh Rathore said the police station concerned is conducting the inquiry.
He said such cases are difficult as the allegations are about poor construction of the retaining wall.
“There is no cognizable offence laid down as such. If someone had died or been injured, it would have been a different matter. This is just a case of landslide and wall collapse,” he pointed out.
Rathore said the police received only one plain FIR on the incident without any documents, which is difficult to probe into.
The FIR was lodged by the BJP’s Tura MDC, Bernard Mark against the contractor who executed the work on the PA Sangma Stadium complex.
“Shoddy and cheap standard of work led to its collapse even before the completion of the work,” the FIR read.
Marak asked the police to register the case and book the people responsible for the collapse of the retaining wall.
