JKNPP accuses state govt of abusing grants for development schemes

Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) chairman Harsh Dev Singh in a statement issued here on Sunday has condemned the state government of abusing the grants received by the state for several developmental schemes, from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), during the last couple of years.

Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) chairman Harsh Dev Singh in a statement issued here on Sunday has condemned the state government of abusing the grants received by the state for several developmental schemes, from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), during the last couple of years.

HT Image

Singh has pointed out that more than Rs 500 crore were provided by ADB from 2004-05 onwards for the construction of roads, bridges, sewerage and drainage projects in different parts of the state, but regretted that the government had failed to show any tangible output on the ground.

He said that the developmental schemes sponsored under the ADB were to be executed through the Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA), which it failed to deliver.

Singh added that several approved projects had been abandoned by the contractors, while others were lingering for several years with the ERA, who were behaving as mute spectator and failed to take any action against delinquent agencies.

Making special mention of the Udhampur-Ramnagar road, Singh said that the construction of a bridge over the Tawi river had been abandoned, with the ERA extending the deadlines for its completion year after year. He added that a sewerage project in Jammu west, sanctioned at a cost of Rs 150 crore, had met the same fate.

Flaying the state government for its omissions and commissions in implementation of schemes sanctioned under the ADB, he called for year wise progress report of the ERA from 2004 onwards, in respect to all sanctioned schemes and fixation of responsibility for all lapses and irregularities committed in the process of implementation of the said schemes.