Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has sought immediate
release of Rs 300 crore from the Centre to the Border Roads Organization
(BRO) for repairing the vast network of damaged roads in calamity-hit
Uttarakhand.
Bahuguna met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi
on Tuesday and said that there was widespread resentment over the slow
progress due to lack of funds with the BRO in reconstruction of major
roads damaged in the June calamity, an official release said.
The amount has already been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Uttarakhand headed by the Prime Minister himself.
Bahuguna said Singh was informed that Congress MLAs were prepared to
stage dharna in Delhi on the issue and had called it off only at his
(CM's) behest.
The BRO has been entrusted with the task of
repairing 1510 km of roads in the hill state whereas the National
Highways Authority is in charge of rebuilding 750 km of roads.
The
Chief Minister, who had earlier met Union Surface Transport and
Highways Minister Oscar Fernandes, told Singh as to what transpired at
his meeting with the Minister and asked him to expedite the release of
funds to the BRO so that road reconstruction work could be completed
before the start of the Char Dham Yatra season in April-May.
At
his meeting with Fernandes, Bahuguna opposed the suggestion that road
repair be handed over to a public sector organization and insisted that
the National Highways Authority and BRO were best suited for the job.
Handing
over the job to other agencies would lead to avoidable delay, with an
adverse impact on the tourism sector of Uttarakhand, the Chief Minister
said.
Bahuguna also informed Singh that 10 new divisions of the
PWD have been constituted to ensure timely completion of road projects
worth Rs 2000 crore funded by the World Bank and ADB.
The Prime Minister has promised to speedily resolve the issue by releasing the required funds to the BRO as early as possible.
Source: Latest News in Hindi
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