Shillong: The cost of constructing a new building of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly has increased to Rs 200 crore from the earlier estimate of Rs 141 crore, Assembly Speaker Thomas Sangma said on Thursday.
He justified the cost escalation on grounds of the increase in the structural area as the floor area is now bigger.
“From the earlier Rs 141 crore, now the total cost has gone up to Rs 200 crore,” Sangma said.
Stating that the new Assembly building is likely to be completed within a year, the Speaker said the construction of the new dome design has started.
“Now, the work has started and we are hopeful that the Assembly building will be completed within a year’s time,” Sangma voiced optimism.
On May 2022, a 70 tonne steel dome of the under-construction new assembly building at Mawdiangdiang in the New Shillong Township collapsed due to faulty design.
“We have slightly modified the new dome and it has been made lighter,” Sangma said.
Construction of the new Assembly building on 80 acres of land at Mawdiangdiang is being undertaken by Uttar Pradesh-based Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd.
The 125-year-old Burmese teak building at Khyndai Lad was reduced to ashes in a fire on January 9, 2001.
The historical structure made in Gothic style by the British before Independence, also had the privilege of hosting the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) ministerial meeting in 1986.
From March 2001, assembly sessions have been held at the state’s central library auditorium and later shifted to arts and culture auditorium within the premises of Brookside, the house where Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore began writing his “Shesher Kobita” in 1919.
