The Mylliem Upper Shillong Water Supply Project, sanctioned at a cost of Rs 33 crore, now needs an additional Rs 2.46 crore for restoration work, Urban Affairs Minister Hamletson Dohling said.
The funds are needed for “restoration work for laying the pipes before we close this scheme,” Dohling, who is also Mylliem MLA, told Highland Post.
The project was sanctioned in 2012 with a target to complete it in 2014, but “the scheme is incomplete and acts as a blockage in bringing the new water supply scheme to the area,” the minister said.
Dohling has taken up the matter with Public Works Department Minister Prestone Tynsong and Public Health Engineering Minister Samlin Malngiang as the PWD will not permit laying of pipes if the roads that are disturbed in the process are not repaired afterwards.
Former Mylliem MLA and current MDC Ronnie Lyngdoh alleged earlier that the scheme has been delayed at its halfway point and the volume of water that is being wasted is criminal.
“This Rs 33 crore project was my initiative that should have been commissioned two-three years back. Now the project has reached halfway but owing to the non-completion of distribution networks the water is simply wasted in the ground,” he told Highland Post.
Work on the distribution network is underway and Lyngdoh believes that the project will come online within a couple of months, but it will require the department and all concerned to take up the matter seriously.
