Shillong, May 27:  The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati has agreed to act as the third-party audit for investigating into the recent collapse of the dome of the new Meghalaya Legislative Assembly building at Mawdiangdiang, New Shillong Township.

Informing this on Friday, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said the state government has received information from IIT Guwahati that they are willing to come and take up the Third-Party inspection of the under-constructed building.

“We expect them (IIT, Guwahati) to come in the next couple of days and inspection and complete study will be done,” he said while assuring that it will completely be independent in nature and independent from both the stakeholders – the designers and the contractors – and  also from the government.

Out of the four IITs which include Kolkata and Delhi, one of them had expressed its inability to accept the request of the state government, Sangma said.

Stating that the Assembly building was a highly technical project, he said that a project of this nature has never been done in the whole of North East and in fact in the entire eastern region maybe only Victoria building in Kolkata that have that dome.

“As per my knowledge I think nowhere in the eastern region that this kind of project has been tried out so it was very highly technical and very complicated both from design and construction point of view.”

On the Congress’ demand to drop the PWD (Buildings) Minister and also to take action against the Executive Engineer (EE) of the department, the chief minister however said, “Well, that’s the nature of politics”

He said that the government has maintained that quality was fully maintained adding that the weight of the dome structure alone is 4,500 metric tons (or 4 lakh kgs) so one can imagine the architectural as well as engineering and contractual skills required to move such a project forward.

Urging all concerned to wait for the inquiry report to present the real picture into the entire incident, Sangma said it will be premature to jump into any conclusion and blame that it was because of the PWD (B) Minister that this has happened.

“So let the inquiry report come out and we will take a decision,” he assured.

Regarding the tender clauses that have been allegedly violated while implementing the project, the chief minister however said that UPRNN Ltd were given a certain percentage to subcontract the work to other agencies so that’s it.

On the alleged pending CBI cases against the UPRNN Ltd and Design Associates, Noida, Sangma however maintained that the Design Associates was appointed by the previous Congress-led government and not by the present MDA government.

“First part is that the appointment of the Design Associates was done by the previous government and that is something I don’t want to comment on as that was done much before we came in and that’s there,” he said.

“There was a mention about Design Associates having some kind of allegations and some CBI inquiry going on – that factor you have to ask the opposition leader Mukul Sangma on what the details were and why that time they appointed the Design Associates,” he added.

Meanwhile, the chief minister said allegations and inquiries could be happening but till conviction doesn’t take place one cannot deny anybody from participating or to work.

“Inquiry will happen but until and unless a conviction takes place I think it is unfair to judge somebody on the basis of allegation or inquiry that is taking place,” he asserted.