Completion of three major construction work in Kohima– old medical directorate, multi level parking and cultural hall remain uncertain, owing to pending court cases and lack of Central fund, Urban Development advisor, SI Jamir said.
Speaking to Nagaland Post, SI Jamir said that Centre had scrapped the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) scheme in 2014, under which the construction of old medical directorate and multi level parking lot were undertaken.
He said that the state government was trying its best to resume the construction of both the projects under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme. However, on the other hand Jamir said as per Centre’s decision at least 50% of the work had to be completed to continue the funding, which was not so in this case.
Despite all these hurdles, Jamir said that the state government was still pressing to let the Centre reconsider, particularly for revenue-starved state like Nagaland. If not, he opined that the “last option” would be to go for a Public–Private Partnership mode. With regard to construction of cultural hall, he said that the construction was put on hold due to litigation issue. Officials of the Urban Development department said that 80% work for the cultural hall has been completed.
The department said that the initial delay was due to site demolition and leveling issue, and also due to the state’s inability give its share on time. The department said that the contractor had also sought for cost escalation and took the matter to Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench.
Expressing regret that the work could not be completed because of the long-standing issue in court, the department said several meetings with the High Level Technical Committee and State Project Implementation Committee (SPIC) was held, however it was futile.
Officials further said construction of old medical directorate was 50% complete. The delay in this case was due to the time taken for demolishing the old building and land issue.
On the multi level parking lot project, officials said 20% of the work was completed, the work order which was issued in 2010. However, only two years the construction work began and stopped in 2014, the department stated. In this case, the officials said that delay was due to shifting of the NST infrastructure to a new site.
The officials said that for the old medical directorate and multi parking lot, Urban ministry had released 1 ½ of its share while state gave its first share. However, the state was unable not give its corresponding share on time, the officials said, which had then crippled the work progress.
The concept of the cultural hall, was to have a state of the art orchestra hall for convention and performing arts. While for the parking lot project, the department said the objective was to ease the traffic congestion in Kohima, by making parking space available for buses in the ground floor and other vehicles in the upper floors.
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