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.

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Meghalaya scripts several firsts in run-up to LS polls

Courtesy: The Hindu

It may be a small state with just two Lok Sabha constituencies, but Meghalaya has scripted several firsts in the country as far as preparation for the April 16 poll is concerned. Chief Electoral Officer Prashant Naik told PTI that Meghalaya has the distinction of being the first state to print its own electoral rolls.

The electoral rolls were printed by the department with the help of around 120 digital photo cameras which the department owns - another distinction the department has earned as no other state owns such number of cameras. There are 1,277,736 voters in the states' two constituencies of Shillong and Tura.

Interestingly, the state also has the distinction of emerging as one of the two states with 100 per cent EPICs (election photo identity cards). Also, the election department is the first in the country to own around 800 video cameras.

"We had advertised for it. But we found that the cost the department would have to incur if we were to take them from agencies on lease, it would be nearly two times the actual cost of the cameras. So we decided to purchase it ourselves," Naik said.

The CEO said night vision cameras and CCTVs would be installed in all the eight strong rooms to "clear people's doubts about any attempt to tamper with ballot boxes."

"There will be a long period between voting and counting of votes for the first time. Therefore, we have decided to install surveillance cameras to ensure transparency and clear people's doubts," he said.

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