Meghalaya speaker sets July 2024 as deadline to complete new Assembly building

Meghalaya Assembly Speaker Thomas A Sangma reviewed the construction of the new Assembly building at Mawdiangdiang near here and set July-August 2024 as the deadline for its completion. 

Sangma has asked all line departments to complete their respective tasks within the stipulated time and assured that the next autumn session will be held at the new assembly building. 

"We have set the deadline for the inauguration by next July/August. The time may be very tight but we will try our best that the work will be done," Sangma told PTI after chairing a review meeting with several line departments. "It is my desire that this project is be completed at the earliest," he said. 

Sangma said that the DoNER ministry has assured in principle sanction to the second phase of the construction. 

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"We are in the process of preparing the DPR. Hopefully, we will be able to get the sanction within March 2024," he said. Work to set up the new Assembly building had commenced in 2019 with an initial fund of over Rs 120 crore. 

It was scheduled to be completed by July last year but the central 70-ton steel dome crashed in May last year. 

The debris has been cleared and work for the new dome with fabricated steel has begun and is being vetted by IIT-Guwahati. The pre-fabricated structure will be arriving shortly and the installation will begin by February and will be completed by April, he said. 

The construction of the new Meghalaya Assembly building was taken up after a fire broke out in it in 2001 destroying most of it. 

The Assembly sessions are currently held in an auditorium of the arts and culture department in Rilbong area of Shillong.