Srinagar, August 23
The government is planning to cover all villages and hamlets in Jammu and Kashmir under a project of road connectivity under the Bharat Nirman Programme and other central and state road constructed projects to ensure equal development.
This was revealed by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad here yesterday while reviewing and monitoring progress of various mega and mini road construction programme being executed by R&B ministry of the state. He appreciated efforts of the engineers particularly since May this year for executing the works under double shift system. He said he had received reports and also observed himself that works, which were pending since long time had been completed in months.
Mr Azad called upon engineers to ensure the execution of road projects from starting point to tail end and avoid resorting to peace meal construction. He said taking up work in parts only created inconvenience to the people and even led to waste of government exchequer. He directed the engineers to ensure the use of quality material, better monitoring and timely completion of the under execution road projects in the state. The Chief Minister said that his government was determined to provide better road connectivity to the people of the state especially people living in remote and far-flung areas who still lacked this facility. He said better road communication was essential for socio-economic transformation of the ruralities and for the purpose the government has launched various schemes under which every un-connected rural area was being connected with the urban areas.
Minister of state for Works, Gulchain Singh Charak said the state had embarked upon a massive road connectivity programme under which various new roads were being constructed to provide accessibility to the cut off areas and upgrading and improving condition of existing roads. Addressing a meeting of senior officers and engineers of the department, he said the Bharat Nirman Project envisaged road construction among other development programmes. Similarly funds are being provided through the Asian Development Bank to attend to the road connectivity programme in the state. He said while various new roads and upgradation and improvement of existing roads were taken in hand in rural areas, special attention was also being paid to provide better road connectivity system in the cities of Jammu and Srinagar and sub-urban towns of the state.
Mr Charak stressed the need for avoiding the practice of over burdening the utility of roads by dumping building material on roads, using them for washing vehicles, damaging roads for various personal use and many other such activities. He said un-necessary parking of vehicles on roads mismanagement of vehicular traffic, non-adherence to the traffic rules and other such activities not only created hurdles in the movement of traffic but also affected the maintenance and up keeping of roads especially in cities and towns. The Chief Engineer R&B was also present in the meeting.
