Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 28: Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam today chaired a high-level meeting to review the stockpiling of petroleum products for the winter season in Jammu & Kashmir.
ADG Traffic, Divisional Commissioners of Jammu and Kashmir, Administrative Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, IG Jammu, SSP Traffic, and representatives of petroleum companies participated in the meeting.
The meeting was informed that in the absence of regular railways carriage, the shipment of petroleum products is being arranged through roadways from the neighbouring state of Punjab. In this regard, it was requested that to maintain the required stock of these products especially in the valley, highway access to the heavy goods vehicles/ lorries be permitted throughout the week in relaxation to the existing policy of half-weekly travel.
The Chief Secretary impressed upon the concerned to chalk out a mechanism in coordination with the divisional administrations of Jammu and Kashmir to ensure hassle-free, to-and-fro movement of approximately 300 petroleum-products laden Kashmir-bound vehicles on the national highway, on a daily basis.
The Divisional Commissioner, Jammu was directed to identify suitable holding areas along the highway to arrange for bunching of these vehicles to facilitate their movement in groups, without disrupting the regular flow of vehicular movement on NH-44.
Further, to ensure safe and secure storage of highly inflammable petroleum products, district administrations of Jammu and Srinagar were directed to provide suitable locations/ terminals for their proper unloading and storage.
Meanwhile, the Chief Secretary chaired the first meeting of the State Broadband Committee to review the implementation of National Broadband Mission in Jammu & Kashmir.
Administrative Secretaries of departments of Home, Housing & Urban Development and Information Technology besides, officers from LSA, Department of Telecom, GoI, BSNL and representatives from TAIPA participated in the meeting.
The meeting was informed that to provide high-speed internet connectivity in Jammu & Kashmir, the J&K Communication and Connectivity Infrastructure Policy will be adopted soon which will pave the way to the implementation of Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules, 2016 in the Union Territory.
The Chief Secretary asked BSNL to undertake a survey and consolidate the data regarding the villages/habitations which are yet to be provided with mobile network coverage, besides sharing information on the Broadband Readiness Index (BRI) for J&K.
Reviewing the progress achieved under the National Broadband Mission, the Chief Secretary observed that approximately 3200 Gram Panchayats in the UT is still to be provided with high-speed broadband connectivity. In this regard the Department of Telecommunications was asked to review the bottlenecks and expedite the connectivity of the unconnected villages, favourably by December, 2021.
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