Jammu, Jan 8:
Advisor to Governor Kewal Kumar Sharma today directed for ensuring early completion of the sewerage network projects in the twin capital cities of the State so that proper waste disposal is ensured and ecological concerns are also addressed. The Advisor was speaking at a meeting convened to discuss the status of implementation of the sewerage treatment projects being executed by NBCC and other executing agencies under erstwhile JNNURM. Financial Commissioner Housing &Urban Development, KB Agarwal, Secretary in Housing and Urban Development Department, Anil Kumar Gupta, General Manager NBCC, Chief Engineers and other senior officers attended the meeting. While directing for the early completion of the sewerage network, the Advisor said that the executing agencies should work in tandem to ensure the bottlenecks if any are removed and the remaining works are completed at the earliest. He said the completion of these projects would go a long way in channeling the sewerage and related things in the capital cities and provide the much-neededrelief to the people. The Advisor was informed by the General Manager NBCC that the work has got stalled due to non-release of funds and if the funds are released both the schemes for Jammu and Srinagar will becompleted by September 2019.
The Advisor directed for immediate release of the pending funds if any so that the work is fast-paced on these prestigious projects and people get benefited from these. He also directed the executing agencies to strictly adhere to the timelines fixed for completion of these projects and ensure that there is no further delay on their part so that these are commissioned within the stipulated time set. It was informed that the Sewerage Projects for Srinagar and Jammu were sanctioned by the Centre at the cost of Rs 132.92 crore and Rs 129.23 crore respectively for integrated development of infrastructure in the cities. Besides, Rs 108.85 crore have been released for Srinagar, out of these Rs 96.70 crore have been utilized whereas for Jammu, Rs 66.06 crore have been utilized against the release of Rs 70.21 crore by ending March 2018. The meeting was informed that Comprehensive Sewerage Plan for Greater Srinagar including 60 MLD Capacity STP, trunk sewer lines, lateral sewer lines and house connections have been completed to a large extent while as the comprehensive Sewerage Scheme for Greater Jammu including 27 MLD capacity STP and trunk sewer lines have been completed while as the work on lateral sewer lines would be completed soon and house connections would be installed soon.