Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Feb 10: The High Court today sought action taken report (ATR) with regard to bridges which are under construction and projects which were either put on halt or delayed due to insufficiency of funds in Kashmir province.
As the large number of construction of bridges and other projects in Kashmir province are either on halt or delayed due to lack of funds with the executing agency, the High Court directed the Government to file the ATR with regard to making availability of funds to the executing agency in order to avoid any delay on completion of infrastructure projects in J&K UT.
The report of JKPCC revealed the problem of inefficient financial planning and release of finances to enable completion of public infrastructure projects and court has already observed that it cannot be denied that people must be facing extreme difficulty on account of the non-availability of the means of the connectivity as such the issues relates to the matter needs critical attention at the highest level.
JKPCC informed the court that despite requests and imperative need of funds, the same have not been released by the Finance Department resulting into delay of the completion of these projects and similar delay is attributed in context to constructions of various flyovers.
JKPCC in its compliance report stated that it is the only executing agency and the budget component in respect of all over the bridges under execution with JKPCC dominion is with project authorities like PWD and those funded by the World Bank. However, these bridges funded by the WB, execution is going on smoothly and funds are released from time to time.
Agency further informed that most of the bridges are delayed in completion due to paucity of funds and the agency is unable in timely completion of these bridges and there is no fault on part of the agency.
As per the report, Corporation is without any budgetary support of the Government and has to earn the administrative overheads and salary and wages of the profit component of the projects under execution.
“Further in 2018 some 16 bridge projects under execution with JKPCC including Akhal Bridge and Tengchatri Bridge Iron Project Authority PWD whose pace of work is either at halt or low have been put under ‘Languishing Bridges’ and will be funded by the J&K Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation”, read the compliance report.
Court earlier had directed the JKPCC to inform it by giving details of the Bridges and Flyovers which are under construction by the agency along with the date of work allotted and original completion of date.
Details with regard to date of allotment and date of original completion of projects as also the expected date of completion of such projects from the J&K Project Construction Corporation (JKPCC) was also sought by the court.
Government is under direction to inform it about the status of funds allocated for the construction of bridges in Kashmir province as the constructing agency submits for lack of funds.
The said direction was passed to the Finance Department after the stand taken by the Corporation that despite requests and imperative need for the funds, the same have not been released by the Finance Department resulting into unwarranted delay in completion of these projects.
An affidavit was filed before the court giving the details which were required regarding construction of bridges by the Jammu Kashmir Project Construction Corporation in the Kashmir province and funds were required to be released by the Finance Department.
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