Opp AITC demands appointment of IIT-Rourkee for conducting fresh audit into Meghalaya Assembly dome collapse

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaOctober 1, 2022

The opposition All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) on Friday demanded appointment of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Rourkee for conducting a fresh audit into the collapse of the dome of the Assembly building at Mawdiangdiang.

The opposition also asserted the need to uncover the alleged illegal nexus between the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government and the two contractors – UPRNNL and Badri Rai & Co.

According to them, the government’s decision to appoint the IIT-Guwahati instead of IIT Rourkee to probe into the dome collapse was purely to shield the contractors – UPRNNL and Badri Rai & Co and to bury the incident quietly without taking any serious action against the two contractors.

In a statement, AITC national spokesman Saket Gokhale said in yet another twist to the never-ending revelations of illegal connivance and irregularities in the construction of the new Assembly building, new facts have come to light which show a clear attempt by the MDA government to bury the entire issue quietly.

“Therefore, for this entire illegal nexus to be uncovered, we demand that the IIT-Rourkee or any other independent agency (which is NOT working with UPRNNL or Badri Rai & Co.) be appointed for a fresh audit of the collapse of the dome of the new Meghalaya Assembly Building,” he said while demanding that the UPRNNL and Badri Rai & Co be immediately blacklisted from the construction contract for the new Assembly building and be penalized and a fresh tender be floated for construction of the same.

He further demanded that “an independent court-monitored probe be initiated immediately into the shocking acts of collusion and connivance between the MDA government and the 2 contractors who have been allowed to violate all norms and who have been protected by the MDA Government despite their failures.”

Gokhale said these new facts are an addition to an already-long list of incidents of connivance and collusion between the MDA government and certain favoured and favourite contractors who manage to surprisingly bag all the lucrative contracts in the state of Meghalaya.

According to him, this nexus of Govt-Contractor corruption has caused serious losses worth crores to the public exchequer of Meghalaya.

Further highlighting the findings of the party, Gokhale said instead of blacklisting the contractor UPRNNL for the dome collapse (and for illegally subcontracting work to disqualified company Badri Rai & Co.), the Government of Meghalaya decided to allow the same contractors to fix the collapsed structure at no extra cost.

In August, IIT-Guwahati submitted its audit report into the collapse of the new Meghalaya Assembly Building to the Govt of Meghalaya. In its report, IIT-Guwahati said that the collapse happened due to lack of coordination between the designers and the contractors.

The national spokesman revealed that in 2018, IIT-Guwahati had floated a tender for construction of 160 units of F-type residential quarters (b) The cost of this project was Rs 136.86 crores (c) The contract for this tender was finally given to UPRNNL which, astonishingly, subcontracted the work to Badri Rai & Co.

“In short, IIT-Guwahati currently has a 136.86 crore construction contract ongoing which is being executed by UPRNNL and Badri Rai & Co. (the same 2 companies who were working on the collapsed new Meghalaya Assembly Building). This information is revealed in the IIT-Guwahati Director’s Report dated 22.09.2020,” he said.

He added that the pertinent question that arises here is: How was IIT-Guwahati expected to give a neutral & independent report into the irregularities in the new Meghalaya Assembly dome collapse when the erring contractors themselves are doing ₹136.86 crores worth of work for IIT-Guwahati?

“It is clear, therefore, that the Meghalaya government appointed IIT-Guwahati instead of IIT Rourkee to probe the Assembly Dome collapse purely to shield the contractors UPRNNL and Badri Rai & Co. and to bury the incident quietly without taking any serious action against the 2 contractors. UPRNNL sub-contracted the new Meghalaya Assembly dome construction work to Badri Rai & Co. despite the latter having been disqualified from the bidding process due to lack of experience in building such structure with a dome,” Gokhale said.

Slamming the government for its inaction against this illegal connivance, he said further, in a clear conflict of interest, IIT-Guwahati, which has itself already allotted Rs 136.86 crores worth of contract to UPRNNL & Badri Rai & Co, was asked to audit the Assembly Dome collapse where it is clear that they would go easy on the 2 contractors who they themselves were working with.

“The fact that IIT-Guwahati was told to audit the dome collapse and not IIT-Rourkee shows clearly that the MDA Government illegally connived with the contractors and tried to bury the matter by not disqualifying/blacklisting the contractor and also by not even imposing a penalty,” he further asserted.