Just days after it was used to host a semifinal fixture of the Meghalaya State League 2023, a retaining wall collapsed at the PA Sangma Stadium in Tura today morning, carrying a small section of the football pitch with it.
It was only in December that the stadium was inaugurated, though work on the wider sports complex continues.
Six months later and a few days of sustained rainfall has been enough to, apparently, cause the wall to fail. What makes it more embarrassing is that the stadium is named after none other than the current Chief Minister’s late father, who was himself a Meghalaya CM, Member of Parliament and Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
Sports administrator Gino Sangma described the collapse as “very unfortunate” as the stadium was meant to be an iconic structure for the town and Garo Hills as a whole.
He noted that Tura has been experiencing very heavy rain, including last night, and expressed relief that there were no casualties, but said that the authorities need to look at the incident “very seriously because these things should not occur.”
The contractor, Sangma informed, is Badri Rai Constructions, which has received flak in the past for alleged slowness in carrying out road projects.
The facility was already at the centre of a row during campaigning for this year’s state Assembly election, with other political parties attacking the ruling National People’s Party for inaugurating the stadium even though the rest of the complex was incomplete. The Bharatiya Janata Party was also rubbed up the wrong way after no one from the central government was invited for the opening despite funding being provided by the Centre.
At the time of the inauguration, the state government said that the facility is the country’s largest pre-engineered composite football stadium and has a capacity for 9,500 spectators. The indoor stadiums with gymnasium, swimming pool, table tennis hall, squash courts and badminton courts will be inaugurated by December this year, the government said at the time.
Other facilities at the sports complex are in varying stages of completion. The whole complex takes up 17,000 square metres and is being built at a cost of Rs 127.7 crore.
Social activist Cherian Momin said that the complex was constructed “in the centre of the town” without considering potential hazards and risk to lives and property.
He listed several points, namely that its location is in a “confined space” in the heart of Tura, which raises safety concerns and the lack of designated parking spaces “further exacerbates the potential risks to public safety and convenience”; multiple complaints have been raised by the public regarding the quality of work and “use of substandard materials” but these complaints were dismissed by the ruling National People’s Party (NPP); failure to conduct a thorough assessment of potential hazards before approving the high-cost project; lack of accountability and willingness to accept criticism by the NPP-led government.
He urged for an investigation into the above points and appropriate action to be taken against those responsible of negligence or malpractices.
Meanwhile, a portion of the Umiam lake viewpoint at Mawiong Rim here caved in yesterday. The viewpoint was constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 2 crore.
People have blamed the government for lack of proper monitoring and safety audit of constructions including failure to take into consideration soil bearing capacity, weather condition and quality of works.
“The contractors and engineers are responsible for these repeated collapses of infrastructures especially during the rainy season. By compromising on quality, a huge amount of public money is being wasted every year,” a resident said.
