First, the issue of location and now the “popular” issue of paucity of funds has proved a bane for the work on construction of Mini Secretariat in Tral area of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The project at a cost of Rs. three crore is aimed at resulting in cutting down the time and mitigating other difficulties of people in inter- departmental dealings by bringing different departments in proximity to one another. The work on it, however, as on date is virtually stopped or was going on just for the name sake.
That, at the outset, it should take the authorities concerned seven months in deciding the location of the proposed building is tantamount to proverbial ‘first venture first loss’ and as if it was not enough, paucity of funds has come as a big impediment in its early completion and becoming operational. It was slated to get completed within a year but just within one month of the commencement of the work, it was stopped. The first installment of Rs. one crore in the month of June as promised has not been released so far.
Promises made to the public should match with concrete time bound action and in cases like the one under reference, proper planning, availability of funds, utilization strictly as per project report, supervision, audit, inspection etc must all be constituents of a project that sprouts as a result of promises made with the public. We expect that to materialize in the near future, in letter and spirit. In the meantime, the work on this Mini- Secretariat should be restarted and completed within the stipulated one year.