Maintaining that proper roads are a key to the overall development and prosperity, Minister for Public Works Department Naeem Akhtar on Tuesday said that the government will achieve the target for construction of 818 km of road under Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) by March 2019 in Rajouri.
The projected roads include 350 km length in Budhal and 468 km in Rajouri. “Providing connectivity through state-of-art road infrastructure, tunnels and bridges, especially in rural and far-flung areas would be the topmost priority of the government,” the Minister said.
While reviewing the progress made on various on-going developmental projects under PMGSY and other sectors in Rajouri, he directed the concerned engineers to make the process of execution of works hassle-free and focus on quality and timely completion. He called for strict adherence to norms and deadlines and issued specific instructions to Deputy Commissioner Rajouri to motivate the unemployed youth to establish hot-mix plants and crushers, to produce adequate raw material locally for the construction and blacktopping of the roads.
It was given out in the meeting that under CRF, 3 roads are expected to be completed in the next one-and-a-half-year, at an estimated cost of Rs 100 cr. Similarly, 80-meter Sukhtawi Nallah and 163-meter Badamang bridges are also targeted to be completed at a cost of Rs 6.5 cr and 16.8 cr, respectively during the same period. It was further informed that under City and Town Scheme, 80 km of road has been macadamized in the current financial year with an expenditure of Rs 24 cr.
Akhter expressed satisfaction over the progress of work on the construction of an administrative and academic block of Government Medical College (GMC). He directed the concerned to ensure earlier finalization of the contract for construction of hostels and residential quarters for students and faculty members.
Among those present in the meeting included District Development Commissioner Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Chief Engineer PMGSY Jammu S P Manhas, Addl DDC A S Chib, Addl SP Mohammed Yousuf, Superintending Engineer PWD Rajouri-Poonch Majid Khan and XEN PWD Rajouri Mushtaq Raina.