IIT Guwahati agrees to probe into dome collapse incident

SHILLONG, MAY 27: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Friday said the state government has received information from IIT Guwahati that they are willing to come and take up the Third-Party inspection of the under-construction new Assembly building following the collapse of the dome structure recently.

“We expect them (IIT, Guwahati) to come in the next couple of days and inspection and complete study will be done. It will completely be independent in nature and independent from both the stakeholders, the designers and the contractors, and  also from the government,” Sangma told reporters.

He said that the Assembly building was a highly technical project and that a project of this nature has never been done in the whole of North East and in fact in the entire eastern region maybe only Victoria building in Kolkata that have that dome.

The chief minister also termed the Congress’ demand to drop the PWD (Buildings) Minister and also to take action against the Executive Engineer (EE) of the department as “nature of politics”

He said that the government has maintained that quality was fully maintained adding that the weight of the dome structure alone is 4,500 metric tons (or 4 lakh kgs) so one can imagine the architectural as well as engineering and contractual skills required to move such a project forward.

He urged  all concerned to wait for the inquiry report to present the real picture into the entire incident. Therefore, it will be premature to jump into any conclusion and blame that it was because of the PWD (B) Minister that this has happened, Sangma said. He assured that action will be taken after the inquiry report is received.

The chief minister however said that UPRNN Ltd were given a certain percentage to subcontract the work to other agencies so that’s it.

Sangma further maintained that the Design Associates was appointed by the previous Congress-led government and not by the present MDA government.

“First part is that the appointment of the Design Associates was done by the previous government and that is something I don’t want to comment on as that was done much before we came in and that’s there,” he said.

“There was a mention about Design Associates having some kind of allegations and some CBI inquiry going on – that factor you have to ask the opposition leader Mukul Sangma on what the details were and why that time they appointed the Design Associates,” he added.

Meanwhile, the chief minister said allegations and inquiries could be happening but till conviction doesn’t take place one cannot deny anybody from participating or to work.

“Inquiry will happen but until and unless a conviction takes place I think it is unfair to judge somebody on the basis of allegation or inquiry that is taking place,” he asserted.

By Our Reporter