Leader of the opposition Dr Mukul Sangma will inspect various projects in the state, such as the new Secretariat in the New Shillong Township.
Speaking to reporters recently, Dr Sangma also questioned why the state government has seemingly abandoned construction on Ampati Football Stadium.
The stadium had been initiated when Dr Sangma was Chief Minister in his old constituency of Ampati (now held by his daughter). Dr Sangma inspected the site on May 19 and came away less than impressed with the quality and speed of the work.
“We will be visiting the (construction) sites of different projects that are being taken up by this government, including the so-called new Secretariat where the government has said that they are investing, or rather spending, Rs 1000 crore,” Dr Sangma said. “I don’t know what type of new Secretariat they want to construct. How many rooms will be there? What is the total built-up area? All these things will be required to be known by the public. People should know what will be the built-up area… How many rooms are there, how rooms are constructed and what is the kind of benchmark in as far as the quality is concerned? Are they constructing a seven star hotel standard or five star standard hotel?”
“All these things would be part of our exercise and I am concerned by the way the scarce resources from public exchequer whether it is from government of India or whether it is from the state government public money is public money. Therefore, we will have to be meticulous in our approach and also stringent in our approach. We will put the whole system under scanner and see that the interest of the people and interest of the state is protected,” Sangma added.
Regarding sports infrastructure, Dr Sangma also raised a question regarding the new sports complex in Tura. He stated that it had been planned to construct a new stadium on an open site on 25 acres but the current government decided to replace the Dikkibandi Stadium even though the area in which it is located is congested.
“You don’t construct a stadium in an area where you don’t even have space for parking. You don’t have enough space for the sporting fans to stand in a queue while entering the stadium,” Dr Sangma said, adding that issues of security, disaster management, etc are also relevant.
