The state Youth Congress alleged today that the new National People’s Party (NPP) office currently under construction has no building permission from the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA).
The new office is perched on a road above Polo Ground and is already an imposing sight.
“The current NPP government in the state seems to be holding no bar when it comes to flouting rules and pushing the system to work for their own personal gains,” the Youth Congress said today. “It seems that the bureaucracy is being coerced to suit the whims and fancies of their political masters and this is a direct symptom of the rot that has plagued our beloved state.”
Work on the new office began in September 2020 but “shockingly” for the Congress, the NPP has not received MUDA permission for it even now, when it is “almost 70 percent complete”.
MUDA, it went on, has also apparently “turned a blind eye” to the project to please the state’s political masters.
“This is construed to be a blatant [abuse] of power by the current dispensation,” the Congress added.
It also sarcastically remarked that it has no doubt that the structure of the building will be “ultra-strong” given that it is the office of the “masters”, unlike what has been seen of late in the leaky Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT) and collapsed dome of the new Assembly building.
On the latter, the Youth Congress also claimed that workers are still busy at the site, despite the government ordering a halt to all activity until a third party audit is conducted.
The area should be sealed so that evidence is not tampered with. For a fair inquiry, the engineer in charge of the project (Ransom Sutnga) should be suspended and the Public Works Department (Buildings) Minister (Dasakhiatbha Lamare) should step down immediately on moral grounds, it added.
The Congress also accused the government of converting the state’s identity as an ‘education hub’ into a ‘gambling hub’ and that this will put Meghalaya on a disaster course.
