Reports of attacks on the staff of the National Highways Infrastructure and Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) by so-called ‘unidentified’ miscreants along the Western Bypass project is a harbinger of yet another highway project come a cropper. In the present case the NHIDCL had apparently sought police protection which was denied to them. The district administration, Ri Bhoi district too appears to have ignored pleas to provide protection to the NHIDCL staff, for reasons best known to them. The Western Bypass project is meant to link West Khasi Hills to Ri Bhoi district so as to bypass Shillong city and its periphery and thereby reduce traffic congestion.
As is the case with every road project where land acquisition is involved there is always a catch 22 situation. The NHIDCL officials claim that the work on a particular stretch of the project has been stopped by local clan members at Umraleng village. Their claim they have not been paid compensation by the clan elders. This is not a new development. Sometimes the Dorbar Shnong is the stumbling block and forces the road construction company to change course, thereby making it tough to re-align something that is already planned according to geological specifications and with financial allocations already worked out. At other times dissension between the clan members becomes the bone of contention. In this case the clan members are aggrieved because they have not received land compensation from the clan elders. Instead of resolving the matter within the clan, why are arbitrary diktats passed on to the construction company unless there are vested interests involved as is the case with all land acquisitions transactions. In this case the land was already handed over to the NHIDCL by the Ri-Bhoi district administration in June this year. So is the district administration not the arbiter in this case?
It may be recalled that the Umsning bypass too faced similar glitches mainly because certain land owners wanted their land to be included in the road project even when the alignment did not require that stretch. Clan land whenever acquired for public purposes needs to be done in a spirit of transparency and all clan members need to be brought on board. In this case if some clan heads were paid and they in turn did not share the money with other clan members then why is the NHIDCL targeted? Surely there are legal papers available to prove that the compensation from the part of the Government was already paid and that obstructing the work of the NHIDCL and assaulting their workers is a criminal offence. As stated by the NHIDCL officials this will lead to unnecessary delay which is a trademark of all projects in Meghalaya. They are all afflicted by time and cost overruns. The MDA Government has to develop clear and robust protocols for land transfer transactions for road construction purposes.
