Member Parliament Jugal Kishore Sharma today chaired a meeting of District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DISHA) to review the physical and financial achievements under various centrally sponsored schemes in this border district.He directed the officers to increase public outreach so that benefits entailed under these schemes percolate to grassroots level.The meeting was attended by MLA Rajouri Qammar Hussain Choudhary, MLC Vibodh Gupta, DDC Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, Addl DDC A S Chib, ACD Akhtar Hussain Qazi, executive engineers of various engineering departments, district and sectoral officers of line departments and nominated members of DDCMC.The members reviewed the physical and financial progress achieved by Rural Development, IWMP, Health, Education, PWD, PMGSY, PHE and other departments under various schemes.Legislators Qammar Hussain and Vibodh Gupta raised issues of up-gradation of road infrastructure, rationalisation of staff in health and educational institutions, preparation of thorough drought management plan to address the scarcity of water in rural areas and electrification of left out areas under Saubhagya. They demanded to blacklist the contractors who have abandoned the projects midway ‘to remove this main reason for unwanted delay in completion of projects of public importance.’The meeting embarked on issue of unwarranted delay in start of work on four laning of Akhnoor-Poonch highway and Rajouri-Thana Mandi road.
The GREF representatives informed that DPRs of both roads are in making process and will be completed by August 2018 for Rajouri-Thana Mandi road and in March 2019 in respect of Akhnoor-Poonch highway. The MP directed the concerned to maintain a close liaison with company entrusted with work of DPR preparation and asked for keeping provision of maximum number of tunnels to reduce the distance between the twin destinations.Regarding construction of bunkers in border areas, the MP directed to ensure the quality of work so that they can serve the purpose of providing safe haven to the border residents in the hours of shelling.ACD Rajouri was directed to focus on proper identification of beneficiaries under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana ( PMAY) by conducting Gram Sabhas and implementing the scheme in a transparent manner by displaying list of proposed beneficiaries at panchayats and inviting objections. Meanwhile, MP asked PMGSY department to ensure that the roads under ‘free maintenance’ are regularly repaired by contractors without fail and stressed on road which needs urgent restoration.He complimented the administration for organising outreach camps for spreading awareness about centrally sponsored schemes and flag ship programmes.Earlier, DDC, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary gave resume of achievements through a power point presentation. He informed about the latest status of various developmental projects in the district. He informed that during FY 2017-18, under MGNREGA, 950 works for water conservation, 359 micro-irrigation, 411 works of renovation of traditional water bodies, 109 of land development, 725 of flood protection bunds, 1925 of rural connectivity were completed. He informed that of 12520, 4485 works stand completed whereas 8035 are in progress.