Govt to come up with master plant for beautification of Iewduh market: Meghalaya CM
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Monday said the government will soon prepare a master plan for beautification and overall improvement of Iewduh, which is one of biggest and oldest traditional market in the region.
The decision was taken after his visit to the market. Currently, the government has sanctioned Rs 6 crore for repairing of the footpath inside the market.
Sangma was accompanied by deputy chief minister Prestone Tynsong, tourism minister Paul Lyngdoh, officials from different departments and representatives of the Hima Mylliem.
“We realised there is much more to be done and therefore, now we are going to prepare a master plan to see how we can bring overall improvement in Iewduh,” Sangma told reporters after the inspection.
“We are very concern about this because close to more than one lakh people’s livelihood depends on Iewduh market directly or indirectly. Therefore, it is very important for to ensure that we maintain this and bring it up,”he said.
Sangma informed the government has already sanctioned Rs 6 crore, which work is already going on.
“You may have noticed the footpaths have been repaired and it has been made into stone footpath to give it a natural look.”
Further, the chief minister announced the government’s decision to sanction an additional amount of Rs 15 crore to take up major infrastructural projects like footpath, drainage, dugging of the pipes.
“These needs to be done in a large scale. Therefore, there will not be any overlapping (with the KHADC’s beautification project),” he said.
“Overall, we will try to beautify the place. Of course, this will not be enough but our objective today was to see what more can be done and we realised there is alot of problem with the waterflow, with the nala – so all these will be included in the second phase, which is closed to Rs 15 crore project,” Sangma stated.
He added, “Under the second phase, we expect that we will be able to tender out very soon and I hope may be in a couple of months, we can expect some works to begin – because of the rain and all, we may not be able to do it in full swing but it won’t be too long, it will happen very soon.”
Asked, the CM said, “We have put up the project of Iewduh under NEC scheme and certain amount of that is coming through NEC and some part state government will be funding and in the future for the larger structure, again different sources will be tapped – we have always believe in that – and whether from centre or from state, the objective is to get the work completed. We will do whatever it takes in a phase-wise manner to ensure the overall infrastructure here is improved.”
Sangma also interacted with vendors, farmers, shopkeepers and said, “We got very good suggestions and we have taken note of them.”
“It is a very good visit and we assure the people especially the hima, shopkeepers and traditional heads that we will work hand in hand with them to ensure we are able to improve the overall Iewduh market area,” he added.
To another question, Sangma said they may not be able to expand the narrow lane because shops are there.
“We don’t want to disturb the livelihood of the people immediately. Therefore, first thing we are doing we are trying to use the space in a better manner and hence the pipes are a major concern, they are blocking the way or taking half the road/footpath, if the pipes go in, if proper drainage is created, the existing footpath will be broaden and the utility will increased – that is what really the objective is and that is what this entire project is all about.
In the future, we expect to be able to put more better infrastructure, we will see how we can beautify the different buildings and improve the infrastructure and that will be part of the master plan,” he further stated.
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