SHILLONG:
The Urban Affairs department will submit the blueprint for relocation of 342 Harijan Colony families from Them Iew Mawlong on August 31.
“A meeting has been called by the Chairman of the High Level Committee (HLC), Prestone Tynsong, who is also deputy chief minister, on August 31 and after that we will finalise (the blueprint),” Minister in-charge Urban Affairs Sniawbhalang Dhar told reporters on August 29.
Admitting there has been some reaction to the government’s move to allot three acres of land near RP Chest Hospital for relocation of the residents, Dhar, however, said the government will not go against the will of the people and take everybody on board before taking a final call.
Dhar also called upon all to keep politics aside. “Please remember this is not politics, this is a problem which we have to solve. Don’t play politics with the lives of the public as politics is a different subject and real issues are different,” he asserted.
On April 25, the Harijan Panchayat Committee (HPC) had agreed to be relocated from the Them Iew Mawlong on conditions that the state government provide 200 square meters of land to each of the 342 families within the European Ward besides bearing the cost of construction of their houses.
Based on this, the state government had assured to examine the proposal and come up with a blueprint.
When asked, Dhar said that the government will properly examine the demand on whether it is genuine or not.
The minister further informed that the office of the Shillong Municipal Board has been fully shifted to its temporary office and now the government is yet to finalise its decision to shift the board’s employees to the official quarters. “This is because we are yet to complete the final report but we are trying our best to complete it at the earliest,” he said.
Some sources had earlier said the blueprint was likely to be submitted by Urban Affairs department during a sitting of the HLC slated for the first week of September.