Meghalaya to start work on new Assembly building

Shillong, Oct 23 (IANS) Meghalaya will start constructing an Assembly building to replace a 125-year-old Burmese teak building reduced to ashes 16 years ago, officials said on Monday.

"We will start the project from next month once the Public Works Department opens the financial bid on October 25," Assembly Speaker Abu Taher Mondal said after chairing a meeting of a high-powered committee of the Meghalaya Assembly on Monday.

From March 2001, Assembly sessions have been held in the state's Central Library Auditorium and later shifted to the Arts and Culture Auditorium within the premises of Brookside, the house where Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore began writing his "Shesher Kobita" in 1919.

The high-powered committee of Meghalaya assembly, headed by Mondal, gave its seal of approval for opening of the financial bid on Wednesday.

Three out of seven construction companies - Shapoorji Pallonji Co. & Ltd., Simplex Infrastructure Ltd and Shree Gautam Infrastructure Co Ltd - have been selected after technical evaluation

He said the estimated cost of the project was Rs 141.14 crore

However, the Speaker said the new building would not be a replica of the heritage Assembly building in Gothic style built by the British in pre-independent India.

The Meghalaya government had proposed a new Assembly building at the New Shillong Township in Mawdiangdiang, 12 km from Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya.

Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said the central government declined to allocate funds to the state.

"The state government will earmark funds from its own resources for the building," he said.

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