Jammu and Kashmir Government will use part of revenue generated from water usage charges and sale proceeds of timber for repayment of debts raised by JK Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation Limited (JKIDFC) to fund languishing and priority sector projects.
State Administrative Council (SAC) in its meeting chaired byGovernor SP Malik on Wednesday gave nod to additional resource mobilisation byPublic Health Engineering, Irrigation and Flood Control and Forest Departmentsfor repayment of loans borrowed by newly carved out JKIDFC.
“SAC approved the additional resource mobilisation andrevenue stream to enhance budgetary resource for servicing debt raised byJKIDFC,” reads a government order.
Following the SAC decision, the Finance Department has askedthe Public Health Engineering, Irrigation and Food Control, Forest, Ecology andEnvironment Departments to ensure revenue mobilisation for JKIDFC.
“PHE, I&FC have been asked to increase efficiency ofcollection of water connection charges by way of covering all the unregisteredconsumers and improving collection efficiency of 100 percent. Forest Departmentto improve efficiency to ensure full extraction within permissible limit of 80lakh cft,” reads another order issued by the Finance Department.
To mention, Supreme Court has put an upper cap on extractionof timber from J&K forests at 80 lakh cft per annum.
JKIDFC has been authorized to raise a loan not exceeding Rs8000 crore from various financial institutions including state and nationalizedbanks for completion of unfunded, languishing projects in the state.
Governor’s Administration has set an ambitious target tocomplete 1717 languishing projects by the end of this year.
According to the details of 1717 languishing projects to be completedby the end of this year, major share is of Public Health Engineering andIrrigation and Flood Control Department having 700 languishing projectsfollowed by Public Works (R&B) Department 300 and Power DevelopmentDepartment 168.
A total of 111 projects of School Education Department, 103of Health and Medical Education Department, 79 of Industries and Commerce, 73of Rural Development Department, 65 of Youth Services and Sports and 62projects of Ladakh Affairs Department are also in the list of 1717 projects tobe completed by the end of 2019.
A tentative assessment by the Planning, Development AndMonitoring Department indicated that incomplete projects worth over Rs 10000crore were at various stages and that over Rs 6000 crore would be required tocomplete all of them in one go.
The Planning Department has further analyzed that sixdepartments namely PW(R&B), PHE/I&FC, School Education, HigherEducation, Youth Services and Sports, Health and Medical Education and Tourismtaken together accounted for nearly two thirds of the total unfunded burden.The projects in these six departments alone account for nearly Rs 4000 crore.