Manohar Lal Khattar’s 110 announcements still mere words for Karnal

KARNAL: Even though the assembly elections in Haryana are only three months away, over a hundred announcements made by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar in his home constituency Karnal City and the adjoining areas are yet to see the light of day.
Some of these announcements were made at the beginning of his term in 2014, on which work has not been started yet, according to a data provided by the Karnal deputy commissioner to Rajesh Sharma, an RTI activist. Sharma had sought information about chief minister’s announcements made in different constituencies of Karnal district.
The reply says the chief minister has made a total of 480 announcements, including two in 2019, out of which work on 151 projects has been completed, while work on 211 others is in progress. Eight of the announcements were found to be non-feasible, while 110 projects were still pending and awaiting approval as on March 31 this year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state has completed four and half years, but Karnal is still waiting for completion of some major projects that chief minister Khattar had announced. Several projects are moving at a snail’s pace due to lack of coordination between various departments.
The project to upgrade the Karnal Civil Aviation Club to a domestic airport is hanging fire for the last four years. It is an ambitious project of the chief minister. Development and upgradation of Karan Lake and Oasis tourist complex at Karnal are yet to be completed. Similarly, dairies could not be shifted out of Karnal city even four years after the announcement was made.
Khattar had also announced construction of a multi-story parking in Karnal in the old vegetable market, construction of 50-bedded hospital at Taraori, repair and strengthening of roads from Butana to Sandhir, construction of a park in Assandh town, construction of a memorial to Prithvi Raj Chauhan and a research centre at Taraori. But all these projects are still lying pending. Although many of the projects took off but they are moving at a snail’s pace.
The first phase of construction of the new bus stand and the bypass road has been completed and the chief minister has dedicated them to the people.
Sharma said that the reason behind incomplete projects is that the bureaucracy is not giving its 100% and files of many important projects keep on moving from one table to another, besides lack of coordination among the departments concerned. The negligent officers should be taken to task, he said, adding that a monitoring system should be developed at the state level so that important projects do not get delayed.
Deputy commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh, however, could not be contacted for his response despite several attempts.
Jagmohan Anand, the district BJP president, said that the state government is very serious about the CM’s announcements and all officials have been directed by him to complete the pending projects at the earliest.
“Only 100 days are left before the tenure of the present government ends. Therefore, this is our priority to complete all the announcements made by the chief minister before the assembly election,” he added.