Rs 50 crore allocated for construction of Nongpoh-Umden road
Shillong, Nov 27: The state government has acquired land for a five-star hotel and resort that will come up at Jongsha in East Khasi Hills among other tourism infrastructure to be built under a public-private partnership (PPP) project.
Announcing the development after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma also detailed the whole procedures followed – from taking public consent to floating of expression of interest – to reach this stage of the project.
He said the government is identifying important tourist destinations such as Jongsha, Laitlum, Nongjrong and Syntung – for implementing tourism projects like large luxury hotels in private-public partnership.
“We have exhausted most of the (government) land. We strongly feel that there is a need to have a good resort and a 5-star hotel in that area and hence there is a need for the government to procure land (at Jongsha),” Sangma added.
Additionally, the government has approved land procurement in Umden, a developing tourism destination, with a Rs 50 crore allocation for construction of the road from Nongpoh to Umden.
“Umden is a silk kind of a village area where a lot of tourists are going and again there has been a huge demand by the local people that government should set up some kind of a tourist area, lodges and stay area… in order to fulfill that we have gone ahead and agreed based on the proposal given by the department for the government to buy land out there,” Sangma stated.
Meanwhile, the state cabinet also approved the service rules of the Meghalaya Sports and Youth Affairs department.
“The department did not have service rules till now and finally we have cleared them today and the service rules are like those of other departments,” Sangma added.
