Himachal Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Monday directed the PWD to fix the deadline of March 31 for awarding the consultancy services for preparing the Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) of the 62 new declared National Highways.
Presiding over the review meeting of the Public Works department here, Thakur said that the DPRs need to be prepared well in time and the work to be started on these National Highways at the earliest.
At present there are 69 National highways of 4400 kilometres length and 62 are with State Government, one with Border Roads Organisation, two with Himachal Pradesh Road and Other Infrastructure Development Corporation (HPRIDC) and three with National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL). One NH was jointly with Government of Himachal and other agency.
The Chief Minister directed the department to prepare a road map for connecting all the left out panchayat headquarters with roads and further plan out to connect those villages and hamlets which were void of road connectivity till date.
Thakur said that the department should plan in advance the number of kilometers required to be constructed in a financial year or the bridges to be built and should go for it to achieve the target.
He said monitoring was an essential component of any work to be carried out and the officers concerned should monitor the works regularly and give necessary feedback. The Chief Minister advised to at-least fix a target for the works being implemented and supervise at-least three major ongoing works in a fortnight.
It came out in the meeting that as of now 170 DPRs under NABARD amounting to Rs 634 crore were under process, besides 26 bridges and 16 road projects and improvement of 17 black spot projects of total amounting to Rs 487.21 crore were being sent to the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for approval.
Chief Secretary Vineet Chawdhry stressed upon speeding up the works, particularly that of the bridges. He said that bridges were taking ample time to get completed and in some cases years, for which the PWD department should give a second thought and need to change its working.
The Chief Secretary also advised to install signage on the National Highways on which work was in progress. Citing example of Shimla-Parwanoo four lane project, he said that signage should be erected displaying inconvenience to commuters regretted. He also directed to display the name of the contractor, value of work and the project name on boards or signages on the State road projects too on analogy of PMGSY and NABARD roads.
Additional Chief Secretary, PWD Anil Khachi said that the PWD had prepared the vision document 2017 for connecting each hamlet with road. He said that new road policy would be started for improving the quality of road and the time frame would be adhered strictly.