Construction of 900 rural roads in J

Srinagar, June 29 (UNI) The construction work on 900 roads under the Bharat Nirman Programme in rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir would be completed by the end of March in 2009.

This was revealed at a high-level meeting here chaired by Minister of State for Roads and Buildings Gulchain Singh Charak.

He said better road connectivity was essential for socio-economic transformation of the people in rural areas and the state government was planning to construct 900 roads in rural areas.

The meeting also discussed the formalities and modalities besides efforts needed to remove the bottlenecks for starting early construction of these roads.

Under the programme, Mr Charak said Rs 5000 crore would be incurred in the state and these roads would be completed by the end of March in 2009. In the first instance, two districts each from Kashmir and Jammu province would be covered under the programme.

Mr Charak said proposals have been approved by the state government and submitted to the Centre for early funding. Execution of these rural roads under the programme would be handed over to the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) which will maintain these after completion for five years.

The NBCC authorities were asked to carry out on-line management for effective monitoring of the projects. The meeting was also informed that a quality control laboratory would be set up for ensuring good works.

Members of the project implementation units, independent quality control and national quality monitors would also conduct periodic inspection to ensure quality of works and timely completion of the projects, the meeting said.

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