The District Development Commissioner Kulgam Showkat Aijaz Bhat today convened an officers meeting to review the progress of Consultancy Service for preparation of Feasibility Study and Detailed Project Report for the prestigious road project Srinagar-Shopian-Qazigund National Highway (NH444) under Prime Ministers Reconstruction Program.The DDC was apprised by the engineers that the Union Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MORTH) has declared the highway starting from its junction with NH44 near Srinagar connecting Budgam, Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and terminating with NH44 near Qazigund as National Highway.On the occasion, the DDC sought cooperation from all the line departments (Revenue, PWD, Forest, PHE, BSNL, Irrigation, Transport and Social Conservation) providing of village maps, estimations of land acquisition, identification of wild life sanctuary ,National Parks if any and details of existing right of ways (ROW), Master Plan of District headquarter/towns for the up gradation of NH 444 to 2 lane status.
The DDC directed all the heads of the line department to come up with action taken report and necessary data/maps regarding the decisions taken today in the next meeting which is scheduled to be held on 21 of May 2016.It is worth to mention that the prestigious road project which is coming up at an estimated cost of Rs 1800 Cr is fully funded by GOI will provide an alternate connectivity to summer capital of J&K has been awarded to Casta Engineers Pvt. Ltd New Delhi by J&K PWD (R&B) for redesigning, rehabilitation and up gradation for consultancy service.The meeting was informed that as per the Reconnaissance survey the length of the project road is around 100 km and its width would be around 100 feet. The road passes through a number of Urban, Semi urban and rural areas with variable configuration from single lane, intermediate and double lane in urban sections. It is pertinent to mention that the condition of the existing road varies from poor to fair weather in most of the sections.The meeting was attended by Additional Deputy Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner Revenue, Chief Planning Officer, and Superintending Engineers(R&B)circle Anantang/Kulgam, Tehsildars of different tehsils, District Information Officer, ARTO, District Soil conservation officer, and all the divisional Engineers of different wings.