A 1.4 kilometre road, built through the corporate social responsibility scheme of Star Cement, was inaugurated in Brichyrnot yesterday.
The Waheh Chnong, Stanlee Massar, formally opened the cemented, motorable road.
Brichyrnot, East Jaintia Hills, is 4km away from the nearest national highway and does not have a proper road system, which causes great inconvenience to commuters, especially during the monsoon season.
At the inauguration, Massar expressed gratitude towards Star Cement, which was able to complete the project despite delays brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
He informed that the village authorities will also meet officials from the Public Works Department and Deputy Commissioner about seeing how to get the village connected to the highway.
Also present on the occasion were Star Cement’s Siddharth Banerjee and Kingshuk Borah, besides others.
Star Cement and Brichyrnot have been in the news in recent months over the company’s desire to take out a mining lease for land measuring 42.05 hectares, which will have a production capacity of 2.507 million tonnes per annum (TPA) of limestone and 0.217 million TPA of shale. Clearance was granted for this on June 8.
While the project has some amount of backing from locals, many pressure groups, environmentalists and other civil society organisations are outrightly opposed.
The state pollution control board (MSPCB) had written to the central government in favour of the project even though no public hearing could be held on the project because of strident local opposition. Public hearings were called off on three separate occasions because locals and pressure groups opposed their holding. However, some locals were in favour of the project and their support was used in gaining the clearance.
