New Secretariat in New Shillong Township is already in the planning stage; roads to be expanded in Shillong city

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJanuary 24, 2024

Chief Minister Conrad Sangma informed that the government is at the planning stage as far as designing the new Secretariat at New Shillong Township is concerned.

Informing this here at a programme held on Wednesday to lay the foundation stones laying ceremony at some prominent locations in New Shillong Township, the CM said, “We are already at the planning stage where the design for this new secretariat is being worked out as we speak. We are expecting that by the month of March, we should be finished and completed. And I’m taking a review next week on the presentations for the design of the new Secretariat. Once we do that, we expect that by the month of October, we should be able to start the construction work of the new Secretariat and we are hopeful.”

He added that there will be challenges as in three years’ time to do majority of the work. 

Stating that there is sufficient space for at least the Secretariat to shift to the new Shillong township area, Sangma said, “And once we do that our ideal objective is to use the current locations that are there where the government offices are to expand the roads within Shillong city.”

The CM pointed out that in the last many years, Shillongites have been struggling with the congestion and the traffic issues.

With the establishment of the New Shillong Township, he said that the hope of seeing a planned and a focused approach to actually make the dream of decongesting Shillong into a reality. 

Sangma said, “What is important to also note it’s not about just new Shillong city or the new administrative city that needs to be better. We need to make the current existing Shillong better also and therefore it is both so while we create new infrastructure, new Shillong Township and new administrative city outside and away from the current Shillong city. What do we do to make Shillong city better also? and hence the decondition that we do will allow us to not only have a new infrastructure outside but allow us to now improve Shillong city as we see it today.”

The CM along with the Deputy CM in charge of PWD Roads, Prestone Tynsong laid the foundation stones for the construction of road from Lumshyiap Bellafonte to New Shillong Township at Umsawli via Mawpat, construction including MBT of road from Bribah Mawpat to IAS Colony Umsawli, and improvement including widening to 2-Lane Standard of balance length of Shillong Diengpasoh Road from 14 km to 21.20 km.

The CM said, “We are happy to tell you that the tendering process of these roads will also take place in the next few weeks and I’m presuming and we should be able to start the work for this also very soon. So, it’s not the laying the foundation stone and then leaving it. We expect that the work for this will start within the next three to four months, six months. And we would want these roads to be completed at the earliest.”

The CM also made a mention of the developments that will soon take place in Shillong city.

He said, “For example, we will have the ICC which is the integrated command and control center. This is a state-of-the-art system where we will be having a massive screen maybe five to six times or 10 times the size of the screen in one big hall like we see in the movies and we’ll be monitoring the entire Shillong city with over 300 plus cameras, the traffic congestion the traffic movement. So, it will be complete it based integrated command and control center, which we expect which is part of the Smart City project. And we expect that project also to be inaugurated somewhere before the end of this calendar year.”