Meghalaya: Second phase to decongest Shillong under way

The government of Meghalaya is working towards implementation of the second phase of decongesting Shillong city.

After chairing a meeting on May 3, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said that many government lands, which were lying unused, have been transferred to the urban affairs department in the first phase. 

The urban affairs have gone ahead in creating parking lots at Ward’s Lake, NEIGRIHMS, Forest department in Polo, MeECL in Polo. These have been tendered out and in some places the works have even started.

“Now continuing with that entire momentum we have gone through the different process of now using more government properties to create more parking lots,” Sangma told reporters.

He informed that there is a proposal to shift the PWD office from Barik point very soon in order to convert the place into a parking space and green space besides hoisting the national flag, which will be a large 40-50 metres.

According to him, the government bungalow at Barik point will also be used for parking space.

“Also, the Hydari Park will also be converted to a parking space after shifting the animals from there within 3-4 months time as wee; as extending some part to the civil hospital. So all these discussions took place and overall land that is available with certain departments, which are not utilized in the most efficient manner, we have worked towards rationalizing those lands whether it is in Shillong city or other parts of the state and detailed presentation on that has been given,” he said.

“We do expect that when this happens there will be much more open space, parking space and vehicles, which are parked on the road, will be parked in the parking spaces and we will get space to expand the road,” he added.

Further, the CM informed that the government will also be expanding the road and creating footpaths from Shillong Club all the way to Governor House junction and all the way to Pinewood junction. “So there the land of the tourism and forest department till Ward’s Lake we will take some space from there and extend the boundary wall and create a walking space for pedestrians so that people have space to walk there. These micro plans are being done.”