District Development Commissioner, Dr. Raghav Langer today reviewed the status of damages caused to the public infrastructure due to floods and heavy rains during monsoon season at a joint meeting of revenue officers and engineers of the line departments.The meeting was attended by ADC, Ghanshyam Singh, ADC Basohli, Tilak Raj Thapa, ADC Billawar, Sandesh Sharma, CPO, Uttam Singh, ACR, Devinder Paul Bhagat, SDM Bani, Joginder Singh, SDM Hiranagar, Suresh Sharma, SE PDD, Karam Chand, Executive Engineers of PWD, PHE, PMGSY and EM & RE besides Tehsildars and other officers.The DDC reviewed the sector wise damages occurred to the public infrastructure including roads, bridges, water supply schemes, distribution lines, power supply lines, pumping stations, tube wells etc besides taking stock of restoration works being executed by the departments on the damaged structures.The concerned Executive Engineers informed the meeting that almost all the roads in the district have been restored and made motorable, water and power supply lines made functional besides flood protection measures had also been taken up. For de-watering of flooded areas, two de-watering pumps have been procured for MC Kathua.The DDC directed for authentication of the damages through the District Level Committee constituted for the purpose.
The concerned Executive Engineers were enjoined upon to strictly adhere to the standard operating procedures for State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and furnish the realistic estimates of the damaged works for accord of administrative approval. However, it shall be ensured that the proposals are in line with the standing guidelines and are not covered under any other Head/Scheme and the defect liability period of the contractor.The line departments were asked to submit the pre, during and post execution photographs along with actual work done estimates of the restored works for release of final payments under SDRF after getting the executed works verified by the designated committee.The line departments apprised that there is pending liability of contractors for the previous years. In this regard, it was decided that committee headed by ADDC/ ADC shall scrutinize the estimates and work done liability and verify the claims of the line departments that they had already restored the damaged works and the restoration has taken place as per SDRF norms. The committee shall put up its recommendation for considering post facto sanction and projection of demand for release of funds from the Government.The Revenue officers and the Engineers of the line departments were directed to be pro-active in dealing with the natural disasters and hazard risk management and maintain proper inter departmental co-ordination through Emergency Operations Centres.