Under-construction M’laya assembly dome collapses

A sizeable portion of the under-construction new assembly building of Meghalaya at Mawdiangdiang in the New Shillong Township collapsed in the wee hours of Sunday apparently due to faulty design even as no human casualty was reported as there was no worker at the site during the incident, police said.
According to officials, the 70 tonne dome of the assembly building being constructed at a cost of Rs 127 crore by the Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Limited, a public sector undertaking of the Uttar Pradesh government, collapsed at around 12.30 pm today. Executive Engineer of PWD (Buildings), Ransom Sutnga, who has been overseeing the construction, said, “The weight of the steel dome was perhaps too much for the columns and the beams to bear. This resulted in the entire structure coming down”.
He said the debris will be cleared within two weeks adding that a new design for a lighter structure for the dome would now be prepared within eight or nine months from now.
The design had been vetted by the prestigious IIT Roorkee, the engineer informed. Work on the new building on 80 acres of land was started in June 2019 and was to be completed by August 2022 and was scheduled to be inaugurated in September this year.
Meanwhile, the opposition All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) has castigated the National People’s Party (NPP)-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government saying that the collapse of the under-construction assembly dome was a pointer to the “heights of corruption” in the state.
“An administration that is hollow at its core cannot be trusted with the good governance of Meghalaya. The collapse of the new Assembly Building is a metaphoric reminder of the corruption and ineptitude in the state. The @SangmaConrad-led MDA Government must take accountability,” the party said.
In January 2001, the 125 years old heritage and iconic Gothic structure of the Meghalaya assembly in the heart of the city at Police Bazar was gutted in a devastating fire, ever since which the legislators have been sitting for assembly session in temporary venues including the U Soso Tham Auditorium, State Central Library and currently in the sprawling Art and Culture Auditorium at Rilbong locality in the city, which is also famous for the Brooke-side Bungalow, where Rabindranath Tagore had stayed and is a popular tourist destination