Shillong(Meghalaya), Sept 20: On Tuesday, All India Trinamool Congress National Spokesperson Saket Gokhale wrote to Dasakhiatbha Lamare, Minister-in-Charge, PWD (Buildings) , unveiling the “illegal connivance” between the NPP-led MDA government and contractors for the under- construction Meghalaya Legislative Assembly at Mawdiangdiang.
In 2018, the tender for the construction of the new Meghalaya Legislative Assembly was floated; and on May 22, 2022, the dome of the same building collapsed. According to the bid documents, there were four bidders for the contract. After technical evaluation, M/s Badri Rai and Company was declared as a disqualified bidder “as the company did not fulfil the qualifying criteria of having successfully completed similar works during the last 7 years of key Government buildings with dome or similar architectural feature and the minimum criteria of Bank Solvency Certificate/ Overdraft facilities/Credit Limit issued from the Nationalised Bank of at least 20% of Estimated Cost of the project put to tender”, and M/s Shiva Enterprise was disqualified as it allegedly failed to “submit hard copies of the technical bid.” as mentioned in the ANNEXURE P-1.
After disqualification of the above-mentioned companies, Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd. was awarded the tender for the construction. Thereupon, the Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd. further “subcontracted construction work of the new Meghalaya Assembly Building to BOTH disqualified contractors namely (a) Badri Rai and Company and (b) Shiva Enterprise.”
Although it is mentioned in the website of the Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd. that it does not sub-contract work, in response to RTI, the blatant lie was exposed.
It is evident that the MDA government is hand in glove with the inept contractors. This clearly highlights the inefficiency and irresponsibility of the PWD (Buildings) as well as exposes the egregious monitoring and evaluation mechanism of GoM.
It is also to be noted that after the report submitted by IIT- Guwahati, neither the Chief Minister nor the PWD (Buildings) Department questioned/summoned the main contractor, Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd.
The collapse of the dome of the under-construction Meghalaya Legislative Assembly Building is yet another instance of MDA’s failure. It is utterly shocking that time and again, MDA is not only failing the people of Meghalaya but also squandering tax-payers’ money.
‘Meghalaya Trinamool Congress will leave no stone unturned until the unholy nexus behind the dome collapse is exposed’, said a press statement issued by the party on Tuesday .
