The State government will soon take over ownership of the Sweeper Colony at Them Ïew Mawlong here and shift all employees of Shillong Municipal Board (SMB) from the colony to the SMB residential quarters at Bivar Road.
The decision was taken by the State cabinet today after perusing the report of the High Level Committee (HLC) on the relocation of the Sweeper Colony.
Speaking to media persons after the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said the first recommendation of the HLC was regarding the ownership of the land.
Sangma informed that the process of signing an agreement and taking possession of the land by the State government and the Shillong Municipal Board from the Syiem of Mylliem, and the process has already started.
“The agreement has been signed and the final procedure to actually take over the possession of the entire land is in process and it should be completed within a week’s time,” Sangma said.
He said that this basically will be a tripartite agreement between the Syiem of Mylliem, the Urban Affairs Department and the Shillong Municipal Board.
The second recommendation was the process of shifting of the Municipal office from the Bishop Cotton Road which is housed in temporary premises.
The permanent municipal employees who are staying in the Sweeper Colony now will be shifted to those quarters where the Municipal Board office is.
Sangma informed that the Municipal Board office will be shifted to the old Meghalaya Basin Development Authority office located across the street.
“Once the shifting is done, the Municipal employees will then shift from the Sweeper Colony into these quarters in Bishop Cotton Road,” the Chief Minister said.
The HLC has recommended that the Urban Affairs Department will find locations to relocate the individuals who are not the employees of the different government departments, including those working with SMB and then suggest to the government on how to move forward.
“The government has asked the Urban Affairs Department to give us a report as to find out on how to move forward in this case including the option of relocating if it is necessary,” Sangma said.
According to him, there are procedures to evict people and therefore the government has to follow all procedures.
When asked what was the recommendation of the HLC as far as the illegal settlers are concerned, the chief minister said that the words used was that proper procedure should be followed in order to remove them or evict them from there.
“So therefore the procedure has to be followed let the government department, which is the Urban Affairs Department will examine all of those aspects and then the government will decide on how to move forward,” Sangma added.
The third recommendation was that the employees of other departments staying in the Sweeper Colony numbering around 57 families will be shifted to the designated location which the department will give.
Sangma informed that there are close to 50 per cent who have already moved out from Sweeper Colony and gone to different locations.
When asked how long the process would take, the Chief Minister said that this is a problem that has been there for a very long time.
“What is important is for us to realise is that this is the first time that the government has actually taken this matter seriously and we are actually moving on this and we are trying to find put an amicable solution so that we can find a way in which we can settle this issue,” Sangma said.
He said that the issue is not very simple otherwise it would have been solved a long time back.
