Chief Minister Conrad Sangma will lay the foundation stone for the construction of the much-awaited road from Nongstoiñ to Maweit on September 30.
The 23-km road project is being implemented through Meghalaya Integrated Transport Project (MITP) funded by the World Bank with a sanctioned amount of Rs 98.26 crore.
The Nongstoiñ-Maweit road was first initiated by the Assam government in 1964-65.
About 30 villages are dependent on this road that has been left unattended for the past 56 years.
According to residents, this is the first time that a chief minister will visit the village and they have numerous questions to raise.
Adviser of the Synjuk Ki Nongsynshar Shnong Maweit Area, Tonington Tyrsa said, “This will be an opportunity for us to raise questions on the fate of the proposed two-laning of the 75 km Nongstoiñ-Maweit-Nongjri road.”
He also said that people have concerns on why the government chose to construct only 23 km of the road when the survey was conducted for the 35-km intermediate lane and tender was floated three times.
“We also want to know if money for this project is a loan or contribution made by the World Bank. The chief minister will also have to explain to us about royalty collected from coal challans numbering about 1, 77,297 as per the NGT guidelines from November 2014 to May 2017,” Tyrsa said.
He said as per the RTI dated July 18, 2018 applied by the Synjuk there are 1,64,015 coal challans issued by the government that generated Rs 190,00,51,282 and 13, 926 of these challans are from the DMR collection counter in Nongstoiñ.
“Illegal coal transportation is the reason for the dilapidated condition of Maweit road and the government continues to lie on this matter time and again even in the Assembly,” Tyrsa said.
Another question that people of Maweit area want to raise before the chief minister is the permission granted for setting up of coke factories near the coal mines.
