Minister of State for Transport and R&B, Sunil Kumar Sharma today convened a meeting to discuss various measures for immediate repair of sliding road at Kuligad Drabshalla.DDC Doda, Bhupinder Kumar, DDC Kishtwar, Ghulam Nabi Balwan, SSP Doda, Shabir Khatana, ADC Doda, Hanief Malik, GM NHPC, Superintendent Engineer (R&B) Doda-Kishtwar-Ramban, Niaz Banday, ACR Tariq Naik, ACD Akhtar Qazi, CPO Yoginder Katoch, Executive Engineers R&B, Doda & Kishtwar, representatives of NHIDCL, & Power grid besides other officers of concerned departments attended the meeting.Discussing various provisions of emergency repair of the Batote Kishtwar highway especially the slide prone area of Kuligad, the Minister directed district administration to conduct joint inspection with NHIDCL, PWD (R&B), NHPC, expert geologists, volunteers of SDRF immediately and asked the executing agency to start the work for clearing the road off the loose material.
The meeting was informed that NHIDCL has declared the area as emergency zone and authorized repair works immediately.Sharma directed NHIDCL to speed up the pace of surface work in both the twin districts of Doda and Kishtwar besides directing the concerned to start the permanent slide repair work at Kuligad. The representative of SRM assured the chair to deploy two machines to the Spot.SSP Traffic National highway was asked to regulate traffic for few days in such a manner so as to avoid any inconvenience during the repair work and it was decided that road shall be kept closed for traffic from 09 am to 05 pmeveryday till the completion of works.Acting upon the serious issue of sinking roads due to laying of underground cable networks by telecom agencies, the Minister directed NHIDCL to obtain NOC from Deputy Commissioner concerned before giving permission to such agencies.