LG reviews developmental scenario of Srinagar

Srinagar: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha took a detailed review of the overall developmental scenario of Srinagar district in meeting at Civil Secretariat Srinagar here today. He took stock of the various developmental projects being undertaken by different agencies and the impact of various Centrally Sponsored Schemes being implemented in the district.
Those present in the meeting included Chief Secretary, BVR Subrahmanyam; Principal Secretary to Lt Governor, Bipul Pathak; Sh. Dheeraj Gupta Principal Secretary to Government, Housing and Urban Development Department; Sh. PK Pole, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir; Sh. Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar; Sh. Syed Abid Rasheed Shah, Chief Executive Officer, ERA; Sh. Gazanfar Ali, Commissioner Srinagar Municipal Corporation; Dr. Bashir Ahmad Lone, Vice-Chairman, Srinagar Development Authority (SDA), Chief Engineers, Heads of departments, and other senior officials from various departments.
At the outset, the Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary gave a PowerPoint presentation outlining the brief profile of the district and various developmental indicators to the Lt Governor. He also informed the Lt Governor about the status of various centrally sponsored schemes being implemented in the district.
He also briefed the Lt Governor about various innovations and milestones achieved by the district administration. He informed the meeting that 10 Modern Revenue offices are getting ready by the end of September, besides achieving 100% completion of Jamabandi updation and 89% digitization of the same to date. He stated that specific interventions have been made in education and health sector to improve the overall scenario in the district. 25 smart schools have been established and work is going on in additional 50 schools for smart classrooms. Further, 5 PHCs have been developed as Smart Hospitals and at present 4000 bedded COVID Care Centers have been established. Laying stress on Grievance Redressal Mechanism, the district has established the UT’s first IVRS Call center for public grievance redressal in which around 12000 tickets stand generated to this date and more than 8300 issues related to services have been resolved.
The Lt Governor directed for immediate capacity enhancement of COVID care beds and called for achieving 100% saturation in all Centrally Sponsored and Social Security Schemes so that larger population can avail the maximum benefits out of these schemes and programmes. He also directed to ensure that 100 % payment with Aadhaar linkage is done to benefit the beneficiaries under Social Security Schemes.
He exhorted upon the officers to lay special focus on improving the prompt service delivery mechanism for the timely disposal of public grievances. Every possibility should be explored in meeting the developmental expectations of the people, he remarked.
Later, the Lt Governor took stock of the various projects for Housing, Urban Transport, and Srinagar Smart City Mission.
Sh. Dheeraj Gupta gave a detailed presentation of the various ongoing projects being executed by field agencies of the Housing and Urban Development Department. He briefed the Lt Governor about the new Townships coming up in twin capital cities of Jammu & Srinagar and the plan to construct One Lakh houses in each of the two Metropolitan Regions. He informed that the requisite Institutional Revamp has been undertaken and the two new MRDAs have been notified for planned & coordinated development of the two capital cities. 8 locations in Srinagar MRDA, with a potential of 1.36 Lakh dwelling units have been identified already.
The meeting was also informed that DPRs for the two Light Rail Transit Systems for the two capital Cities has been finalized and the execution of Jammu & Srinagar Mass Rapid Transit Corporations (MRTCs) has been proposed through DMRC.
Taking note of the delays in the execution of developmental projects, the Lt Governor called for a formal policy for incentivizing the timely completion of projects. He also directed the Principal Secretary to Government, Housing and Urban Development Department to come up with Comprehensive Drainage Plans for Twin Capital Cities even if the work has to be taken up in phases. He stressed that prospective needs be taken into account while formulating the plans.
On Smart City projects, the Lt Governor was apprised that 15 projects have been completed, 20 are ongoing and 4 stand tendered. Work has been started on integrated command and control center to cover issues related to emergency services, essential services, city traffic management, security, citywide CCTV monitoring, disaster management, drainage, and other services,5 KM cycle track, smart vending zone, parking, city beautification, Variable Message Display, Reverse Vending Zone.
The Lt Governor stressed upon the officials to speed up the pace of work on all ongoing projects around the city so that the completed projects can be commissioned for public use at the earliest. He asked officers to conduct regular on-site reviews to resolve all bottlenecks, besides achieving a high level of Inter-Departmental synergy.