Chief Secretary Alok Kumar Jain said that all the villages would be connected to roads in coming three years. He said that the Rs. 2763 crore has been sanctioned for Uttarakhand under Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna (PMGSY).
Reviewing the meeting of PMGSY at Secretariat on Thursday, Chief Secretary said that Rs. 1518 crore has been received from the Centre, while Rs. 545 crore was already with the State Government and remaining Rs. 700 crore would be borne by the State Government. He said that target had been set to connect 230 habitations every year.
Chief Secretary Jain directed the officers concerned to form 5 new divisions of Public Works Department in coming three years and depute engineers on contract basis till recruitment of engineers for PWD was made through Public Commission. He asked them to peg the honorarium of Assistant Engineers at Rs. 25,000 per month and that of Junior Engineers, Rs. 15,000 per month. Chief Secretary observed that more divisions would be needed to carry out the works of Rs. 921 crore per year. Stating that presently 17 divisions were carrying out works under PMGSY he directed the officers to form 5 more divisions. Besides, he instructed them to take 3 divisions of RES and 5 from Irrigation Department. This way there would be 30 divisions working for PMGSY only. He said that all these 30 divisions would carry out works relating to only PMGSY. Mr. Jain also asked the officers to depute one Chief Engineer and four Superintendent Engineers for construction works.
Mr. Jain instructed the undertaking agencies to make improvements in their working culture and adopt new technology and take tips from successful ventures of outside agencies. He said that this way more works could be done with less human resources. He stressed on shifting from conventional technique to modern hi-tech system. He maintained that it was necessary to connect the villages with roads for their comprehensive development. He asserted that by all means 300 DPRs should be forwarded to the Union Government by end of September and work be started on approved DPRs. He set it necessary for Nodal Department to monitor the works on regular basis and conduct site visits. Mr. Jain said that there should be no compromise in quality of work. He said that by all means villages with 250 to 499 populations had to be connected to roads in coming three years time.
The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Rural Development, Arun Kumar Dhaundiyal; Secretary, Irrigation, NS Negi; Additonal Secretary, PWD, Amit Negi; Additional Secretary, Finance, Ramesh Agarwal and senior officers of Uttarakhand Rural Road Development Agency.