Staff Reporter

SHILLONG:

Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on January 8 inspected the now ready Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Jail Road.

In a video statement, the Chief Minister said, “I am very pleased and happy to see the kind of work that has happened. The entire infrastructure is just amazing.”

Sangma said that the hotel has come up excellently, and that it will raise the standards of the hospitality sector not just for Shillong and Meghalaya but for the entire North East.

According to him, this is the largest hotel project in the entire North East and also largest in terms of rooms too.

The Chief Minister also said that he was hopeful this hotel will be inaugurated soon.

“Just a few more formalities and a bit of paperwork is left,” Sangma said.

He said that he was satisfied with the kind of work that has been done even as he said that the tourists and others who will be using the services of this hotel will be satisfied.

In 2021, the government had scrapped the previous agreement signed with the HM Cements for the construction of the Marriott hotel and inked a fresh 30-year agreement with Maxim Infrastructure & Real Estate Pvt. Ltd. for completing the project.

The construction began in 2010-2011 and HM Cements was to have completed it within 27 months after getting the land from the Urban Affairs Department on lease for 30 years under public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

However, the company defaulted on payment of the loan. Subsequently, the National Company Law Tribunal took over the project and Maxim Infrastructure & Real Estate Pvt. Ltd. got the project through a bidding process.

The upcoming hotel will have around 200 rooms with state-of-the-art facilities.

In October, last year the Chief Minister inaugurated the first ever five star hotel in the state, the Taj Vivanta at Shillong.

The Meghalaya Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) is the owner of the property and has leased it out for a period of 33 years on a Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode to the Indian Hotel Company Limited (IHCL).

Since 1986, the project has been unfinished. The Taj Vivanta has 101 keys (87 rooms and 14 suites) and is spread over an area of 8800 square metres. Besides specialty restaurants, coffee shops, bars, banquet halls and retail spaces.