Meghalaya Govt to implement first tourist ropeway in Shillong

This was informed by the Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma after the cabinet approved the Meghalaya Ropeway Bill, 2022 on Wednesday.

“The very important Meghalaya Ropeway Bill, 2022 was cleared today by the cabinet and this will be placed in the upcoming (autumn session of the) Assembly,” Sangma told reporters.

He said the Bill is basically to lay down the procedures for different passenger/tourist ropeways that are expected to come up in the state.

Sangma said that Rs 140 crore was sanctioned for the Shillong Peak ropeway, which is the first passenger ropeway in the state through the New Development Bank.

“We expect that we should be calling the tender for this ropeway in the next 15-30 days’ time,” he said.

Elaborating further on the objective of the Bill, the chief minister said the Bill will give a proper structure on how applications can be made for ropeways and what are the different procedures to be followed in setting up of ropeways, the different bodies that will be in place which will give necessary licenses and permissions and what are the different safety measures that have to be taken adding “all these are being put in the Bill and this will ensure that standard procedure is set in place keeping in mind the overall safety of the tourists and the citizens who will be using the different ropeways.”

On the recent order passed by the Meghalaya High Court asking the state government to introduce ropeways and cable cars as a long term measure to ease the ever growing traffic congestion in Shillong, Sangma said ropeways for public transportation are already in the government’s radar.

He however said, “But the planning and implementation for that is much larger and much more complicated, it is not a simple project but definitely in the long run it will help us to ease traffic congestion and definitely it is an option that we will explore.”

The chief minister said that the purpose of coming up with the Bill for now is to promote tourism in the state as he assured “slowly we will expand this and incorporate the urban transportation even for goods transportation and all other forms of ropeways that may be required in the future.”

According to him, it took the government almost 2 years to work on the passenger/tourist ropeway project for Shillong.

“We have faced a large number of hurdles be it clearances, be it finance, be it legislations that have to be done. This process has taken us a long time but we are now finally at a point where we have taken the necessary permissions from everywhere to finalize the location and now the Bill will also be passed and become an Act,” he added.

By Our Reporter