Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. Nirmal Singh has called for innovation in building technology to promote cost-effective constructions in private and public sectors.The Deputy Chief Minister was interacting with officers during his visit to the Building Centre Jammu here today.Special Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Ms. Anuradha Rani, Chief Architect Jammu & Kashmir, Mr V K Panth, Director Building Centre, Jammu, Mr Ashok Kumar Mahajan and other senior officers were present in the meeting.Underscoring the need for using locally available raw material in construction activities, Deputy Chief Minister said it would result in setting up several entrepreneur units by the local industrialists which would in turn help in creating the job opportunities for the skilled youth.The Deputy Chief Minister directed the Building Centre authorities to organize awareness programmes about the building techniques and the material being produced by them at village and Panchayat levels, so that people know about new initiatives and adopt the same while undertaking constructions.
Dr Singh said the Building Centre can also come up as a training centre for skill development initiative under the government’s Skill Development Mission as it would be providing technical knowhow about the safe and secure material to be used while undertaking constructions.The Deputy Chief Minister later took a review meeting with the IRCON officials which is the executing agency for implementation of RAPDRP in the State. He asked the IRCON authorities to expedite implementation of RAPRDP which has a huge potential of upgrading the electric infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir. He said special care should be taken for undertaking the quality checks of the material being used for augmenting the power infrastructure.Dr Singh said the executing agency should maintain a close liaison with the Power Development Department (PDD) while undertaking erection of new electric poles, installation of cables and conductors so that effective monitoring is done besides getting the requisite feedback about the implementation of the scheme on the ground level. The meeting was attended by Legislators, Mr. Vibodh Gupta, Mr. Shakti Parihar, Chief Engineer, Mr Soom Nath Sharma and other senior officers.