Principal Secretary Finance, Navin K Choudhary today chaired 4thmeeting of the High-Powered Committee (HPC) constituted for approval of languishing projects for funding through Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Financial Corporation (JKIDFC).The HPC in today’s meeting cleared 282 Languishing Projects involving an investment of Rs 548 crore. In its four meetings convened so far HPC has cleared 1296 languishing projects in various key sectors involving a cumulative investment of Rs 2720.87 crore through JKIDFC.Financial Commissioner Housing & Urban Development Department, KB Aggarwal, Principal Secretary Health & Medical Education, Atal Dulloo, Principal Secretary, Planning, Development & Monitoring, Rohit Kansal, Commissioner/Secretary PWD (R&B), Khurshid Ahmed Shah, Secretary School Education, AK Sahu, Secretary PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control, Farooq Ahmed Shah, Additional Secretary, Monitoring Flagship Programmes in Planning Department, Prasanna Ramaswami G, Special Secretary Finance, Nazim Zai Khan and other officers of the Finance Department and Chief Engineers of concerned departments attended the meeting.To the pleasant surprise of the participants, Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam also dropped in towards the conclusion of the meeting and gave some valuable suggestions on how to expedite the languishing and other flagship projects.
He also called for regularly updating the progress of these projects on the official websites of the concerned Departments.HPC held detailed deliberations on each Project vis-a-vis their present status, financial involvement and time-line for completion.The Projects cleared in today’s HPC meeting included, 24 of Housing & Urban Development Department costing Rs 78.77 crore, 27 projects of Health & Medical Education costing Rs 47.29 crore, 142 of PHE Department costing Rs 280.61 crore, 64 projects of PWD costing Rs 118.50 crore, 19 of School Education costing Rs 3.62 crore, 3 projects of Tourism Department with a cost of Rs 14.14 crore, 1 project of Transport Department costing Rs 4.62 crore and 2 projects of Power Development Department costing Rs 1.37 crore.Speaking at the meeting Navin Choudhary, who is also the founding Chairman-cum-Managing Director of JKIDFC, said the approved projects would be funded for the time-bound completion through Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation. He called upon the executing agencies to ensure photograph of each project before the start of work and after completion and upload the same in the official websites for the information of all stakeholders. He also called upon the engineers to ensure quality of works strictly as per the approved specifications of the projects.