Shillong Club to make way for plush hotel
Courtsey: The Shillong Times
The Club legacy left behind by the British is set to be replaced by a multi-storied hotel if some members of the Club have their way. An agreement between Managing Committee of The Shillong Club and a private consortium for constructing a plush 100-room hotel is under way. It is learnt that about two and a half acres of land out of the 2.30 lakh sq ft is to be handed over to the consortium in a 'clandestine' manner for constructing the hotel.
Sources close to Club informed that the tennis ground would be the first casualty. This would take away the only recreation space that many enjoy. They say that it is not the brief of any Club to construct a five-star hotel and mar the beautiful landscape. They also wonder how the builders plan to evacuate the sewage or whether all that will be dumped into the Ward's Lake. Said one member, "We have got several letters form the Forest Department which is manning the Ward's Lake about the garbage and sewage that is let loose into the Lake and we have no answer to that"
Veteran members of the Club maintain that this Club is not just a building but a heritage site that ought to be given a facelift without destroying its original look. "It appears that some of our members are hell bent on erasing this last vestige of beauty from Shillong's memory soon", they said.
When some Club members got to know of the deal they requisitioned an Extra Ordinary General Meeting (EOGM) to seek clarification from the Managing Committee (MC) that is currently running the affairs of the Club.
But in an interesting turn of events, the clique in the MC has approached the Court to get a stay order on the EOGM. It was only when the matter came up for hearing in the Court that the original minutes of meetings that were withheld from members, actually came out in the open. Till then the EC was circulating minutes that were manipulated. In those minutes, some salient features of the agreement between the Club and the consortium to hand over 90,000 sq ft of land was not clearly mentioned.
Incidentally, the Shillong Club had earlier parted with 6 acres of land for the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA) parking lot. The Shillong Club land is on lease from the Government of Meghalaya and to that extent, permission from the Revenue Department of the Government is mandatory. But no such permission was sought before alienating the land for the hotel project.
Members informed that the term of a Managing Committee is only one year but the present one is into its third term and no election has been held. "According to the Constitution the term of the present MC is null and void. They should not be taking decisions which affect the Club in the long term", a member disclosed Interestingly, such a reputed club does not have any website and proper email ID.
