Last month’s announcement that property in Shillong that had once belonged to the erstwhile royal family of Manipur was being returned to that state’s government has raised eyebrows, not for any averseness in handing it back per se but for the cost to the Meghalaya exchequer.
The ‘Manipur Rajbari’, known as Redlands, is located in the Laitumkhrah area of the state capital, a place known for eyewatering property prices. To get back this 1.93 acre site, the government of Manipur has agreed to pay just over Rs 91 lakh to its Meghalaya counterpart in the form of ‘premium and land revenue’.
The property has been mired in legal battles for decades prior. A son of the former Maharaja of Manipur had connived to sell off the property from under the residents’ feet in 1980. Those living there, also Manipur royal family members, fought against the sale but, somewhere along the line, the Meghalaya government came into (contested) possession of the land, with its sprawling, if now rundown, heritage structures.
No one from the Meghalaya government has been willing to comment on the measly amount charged to Manipur and why such an act of generosity should be extended to the neighbouring state for a property worth at least, under the present economic circumstances, 17 to 18 times more than Rs 91 lakh.
Another interesting point to note is the difference in the size of the land, which seems to have expanded in course of time. While the area is mentioned as 1.93 acres in the formal handover, old records of the estate state its size at 1.88 acres; a mysterious increase of 2,182.8 square feet.
A property of this value, grandeur, locale, and expanse in the heart of Colonial Shillong remains the envy of all, and such a magnanimous act of the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government deserves note.
