Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, May 27: The work on second phase of Jehangir Chowk-Rambagh flyover has been suspended by the construction company after Government failed to release money to it.
The company has asked its workers and engineers to stop the work and for last one week the work has come to grinding halt. The company has threatened to withdraw the machinery from the construction site if the money is not paid immediately.
The company has written a letter to the Government and expressed its unwillingness to continue to work on the project following Government’s failure to fulfill its commitments. Besides this, they have also highlighted some bureaucratic hurdles in the execution of work.
The project is being executed by Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) and it has outsourced the work to the Simplex Infrastructure Private Limited.
Sources said that the company was assured that the money will be released to it soon after the first phase is commissioned. But after the first phase was completed no payment was released leading to suspension of the work.
The Director ERA, Farooq Lone, told Excelsior that work has been suspended by the company for last few days. He said there is an issue of pending payments and hoped that the work on the project will commence in a couple of days.
The suspension of work by the company started soon after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti inaugurated the first phase of the Jehangir Chowk-Rambagh expressway corridor from the Amar Singh College area to Barzulla bridge on May 11.
The project is estimated to be built at a cost of Rs 350 crore. The Asian Development Bank-funded project is expected to decongest the traffic on the road towards Barzulla and the Srinagar airport.
The officials said that the four-lane flyover, spanning will be made functional by the year-end.
The work on the project was started in September 2013. However, its first phase alone took five years to get completed due to 2016 summer unrest and 2014 floods.
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