New Delhi, Feb 14: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta today exuded hope that in near future the travel time across different districts and divisions of J&K would get drastically reduced with the completion of different National Highway projects currently at different stages of execution.
Dr Mehta made these remarks in a meeting with different stakeholders called for reviewing the progress of land acquisition and other issues pertaining to construction of a number of National Highways across the UT.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Secretary stressed upon the executing agencies to complete all these road projects providing enhanced connectivity to different regions in a fixed timeframe. He enjoined upon them that the significance of these roads is eminent and deserves all efforts to be made to complete them on time.
He directed the Deputy Commissioners to facilitate the executing agencies in performing their work smoothly. He observed that these highways are directly linked with the economic upliftment of people as the trade and commerce would also see growth by enhanced movement of people. He pointed out that tourism sector is going to be the biggest gainer by their completion.
Dr Mehta enquired from the executing agencies about the bottlenecks affecting the pace of their work. He instantly passed on directions to the concerned government departments for taking the measures to address them. He made out that both the executing agencies and different government departments should work in coordination with each other and held regular deliberations for resolving issues without wasting time. He asked them to own these significant national projects and show eagerness in seeing them completed well on time. He fixed timelines for each of the road project for its completion.
It was given in the meeting that the Jammu-Akhnoor Highway would be opened in a phased manner for the ease of public. It was revealed that in next 15 days the 30 km stretch would be opened as per the directions of Chief Secretary and by May 15 the remaining stretch would be finished reducing the travel time to just about half an hour to reach Akhnoor. The work on the beautification of the Flyover and parking underneath is also going to be taken in hand shortly, as was added in the meeting.
