Sitharaman invokes Modi’s resolve,writing on Wahrew bridge completed during Cong-led govt
Shillong, July 22:The Wahrew arch-bridge, connecting Sohbar to Tharia in the East Khasi Hills border, has attracted the attention of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during her recent 4-day-visit to the state.
After visiting Sohbar and other places of interest in the district, she wrote an article in a national daily on July 20, praising the Meghalaya government under the leadership of Conrad Sangma and the central government led by Narendra Modi.
Here is the paragraph on the bridge
“In the last leg of the tour, we reached the village of Sohbar, perched beside the turquoise blue waters of the Wahrew river that flows down to the plains of Bangladesh. The chief secretary of Meghalaya, Donald Wahlang, who accompanied us to this village, recounted how in 2005, as the then deputy commissioner of East Khasi Hills, he had to swim across this river to reach the village of Nongjri. Today, across the Wahrew stands an arched-steel bridge, completed in 2021, that is symbolic of PM Modi’s steely resolve to surmount the challenges that areas at the peripheries face. Sohbar is now one of 92 villages included in the Vibrant Village Programme, which reframes India’s peripheries not as margins, but as proud thresholds to the nation”.
However, the bridge was sanctioned in 2013 when the Congress-led government was in power ahead of the BJP-led government at the Centre in 2014.
Though the project was completed in 2018, the state government inaugurated it only on January 22, 2021.
After opening the project, Conrad had mentioned the local MLA Donkupar Roy of the UDP for his contribution and dedicated the bridge to Roy and the progress of the area.
He had recalled the hard work of Roy, ‘whose vision and commitment led to the completion of the project’.
The chief minister had also said that Roy was instrumental in getting the project sanctioned.
Curiously, from March 2013 to March 2018, Mukul Sangma, then in the Congress, was the Chief Minister.
The bridge was constructed at a cost of over Rs 49 crore under the Non-Lapsable Central Pool of Resources (NLCPR).
The NLCPR was replaced with the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS) in December 2017.
The Centre did not sanction new projects under NLCPR after 2017 since the shift was towards NESIDS, focusing on infrastructure development in the region.
When asked about the bridge, a senior government official said many things were still to be completed, like the approach road, which was part of the project.
