Jammu: Governor N.N Vohra on Thursday chaired the District Development Board meeting in Jammu to review the implementation of the development programmes which are ongoing and planned to be taken up in the district during 2018-19.
The meeting was attended by B.B. Vyas, Vijay Kumar and Khurshid Ahmad Ganai, Advisors to Governor; Jugal Kishore Sharma and Shamsher Singh Manhas, MPs; Legislators of District Jammu: Kavinder Gupta, Sukhnandan Choudhary, Sham Lal Choudhary, Sat Sharma, Bali Bhagat, Devender Singh Rana, Ms. Priya Sethi, Rajesh Gupta, Rajeev Sharma, Dr. D K Manyal, Dr. Gagan Bhagat, Dr. Krishan Lal, Kamal Arora – MLAs; Ashok Khajuria, Ramesh Arora, Thakur Balbir Singh, G L Raina and Vikram Randhawa –MLCs; B.V.R Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary; Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary Planning, Development and Monitoring Department; Pawan Kotwal, Hridesh Kumar, Khursheed Ahmed Shah, Administrative Secretaries, and Sanjeev Verma, Divisional Commissioner Jammu.
District Development Commissioner, Sh Ramesh Kumar, made a presentation giving an overview of the developmental projects in various sectors under execution in the district. He informed that against an availability of Rs 169.75 crores, an expenditure of Rs 168.68 crores was made in the district, resulting in the blacktopping of over 564 km of roads, completion of over 50 water supply schemes, 10 buildings of different departments, 7,383 rural works and generation of over 17 lakh mandays under MGNREGA.
Participating in the discussions, the Members of Parliament and each of the MLAs and MLCs projected a number of issues relating to the district, and of their areas in particular. They called for the speedy execution of a number of mega projects including the Pargawal Bridge, Jammu-Akhnoor National Highway, Ring Road project, Mubarak Mandi and Raghunath Bazar tourism projects, Suchetgarh project, Seema Bhawans and bunkers for the border areas.
They also raised issues which were specific to their constituencies, particularly focusing on drinking water scarcity, incomplete sewerage and drainage projects, macadamization of roads, repair of irrigation canals, solid waste management and parking issues.
The MLAs were also concerned about taking up of flood protection works in their areas. Several Legislators welcomed the various initiatives taken by the Governor’s Administration in the past month, including an increased efficiency in the public delivery process and the focus on elimination of corruption.
Governor noted the issues raised by the elected representatives and observed that the objective of his visit was to obtain first hand feedback on the execution of all the major developmental works, assess the additional resource requirements and take early corrective actions.
Governor observed that the prolonged delay in holding urban and rural local self governing body elections had cost the State dearly in terms of developmental assistance. He sought the cooperation of the elected representatives of all parties for moving towards normalcy and conduct of elections to the Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies.
Governor also emphasized that the focus of his Administration was to provide a people friendly, corruption free and efficient public delivery systems. Responding to the issues raised in the meeting, he observed that his Advisors shall convene early meetings with their officers for immediate review and redressal of the issues pertaining to the departments under their charge.
Governor requested Advisor Khurshid Ganai to urgently examine all the concerns relating to the non-disbursement of pensions among old age, widows and specially-abled persons. He also asked him to look into the delay in the initiation of works even after the allotment of tenders by the executing agencies.
Governor directed the Divisional and District Administration to take urgent effective action on each of the issues raised by the Legislators, particularly those relating to the problems of corruption, encroachment of public properties and slackness in carrying out developmental works. He directed Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, to act as the nodal coordinating agency for resolving all bottlenecks and in ensuring that work on projects was not hampered due to any blockades.
Taking a serious note of the issue of the rapidly growing water scarcity in the district, Governor directed the Planning Secretary to ensure that the project for water supply scheme for lifting water from river Chenab for augmenting water supply in Jammu was proposed under the next tranche of external funding on the first priority. He also ordered the release of an additional amount of Rs 50 crores for accelerating the pace of works and completing the incomplete works in the district. He directed the District Development Commissioner Jammu, Ramesh Kumar, to urgently draw up an Action Plan for all works to be executed on time bound basis.
