SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta, Thursday chaired the Union Territory Level Standing Committee Meeting of PMGSY here.
The meeting was attended by the Principal Secretary, PWD; Development Commissioner, Works; Chief Engineers of R&B Jammu/Kashmir, Chief Engineer PMGSY, Jammu/Kashmir; Quality Coordinator, PMGSY and other concerned officers of the department.
Officers from Jammu and New Delhi participated in the meeting through video conferencing.
On the occasion, the Chief Secretary observed that roads are the lifelines of any nation and a tangible yardstick to measure the development it has made. He remarked that PMGSY is a phenomenal scheme under which thousands of far-flung habitations were able to get last-mile connectivity.
Dr Mehta impressed upon the officers to complete the balance portions of roads taken under Phase I & II of PMGSY forthwith and ensure that the target of 1750 km of road length under phase III is also completed on time. He asked them to foreclose the stalled projects only as per rules in vogue ensuring that no undue favour is done to the contractors anywhere.
He appreciated the department for securing the 3rd rank at the national level for consecutive 2 years for construction of record road length per year under PMGSY.
The Principal Secretary, PWD informed the CS that under PMGSY-III, J&K envisages completing a total of 1750 km of road length. He gave out that out of which 1272.44 km had already been sanctioned by the Ministry of Road Development, GoI under batch-I valuing about Rs 1358 Crore.
He divulged that tenders for all the sanctioned projects numbering 155 valuing Rs 1357.87 Crore have been floated and works to be taken possibly in the month of November this year.
It was further revealed that the balance portion of 576.31 Kms of roads and 63 Large Span Bridges (LSBs) are conceived to be taken under Batch-II of this phase. The DPRs of these projects have been formulated based on CUCPL as batch II of Phase III at an estimated cost of Rs 942.34 Crore and put before UTLSC of PMGSY for approval.
Pertinent to mention here that recently J&K was ranked 4th in completion of road projects at the national level. It is worth mentioning that out of a total of 19038 km of road length sanctioned under Phases I & II of PMGSY the UT has completed the construction of 17601.84 Kms of roads and 156 LSBs connecting 2071 habitations at a cost of Rs 9535.46 Crore, as was informed in the UTLSC meeting.
