In meeting of Smart City Project, Mayor raises crucial points
STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: In a meeting of Smart City Project, the Jammu Mayor, Rajinder Sharma raised certain crucial points.
Speaking in the meeting, Sharma said that the Special Purpose Vehicle was formed in August 2017 having tenure till June 2023 and Rs. 940.60 crore was its budgeted amount of which Rs. 392.46 crore has been spent so far and the balance is Rs. 548.14 crore.
“If in five and half years Rs. 392.46 crore was spent then how Rs. 548.14 crore be spent in just five months,” the Mayor asked.
He said that Erodic Consultant Plus TPF Euro Studio was engaged as Project Management Consultant and was terminated after three years and was blacklisted by Sobhagya Scheme to be implemented by JPDCL.
“Had the Consultant efficient he would have continued but his termination shows his inefficiency and if he was inefficient why he was engaged?” Mayor asked.
“The Project Management Consultant was terminated before completion of the project and he had executed the work in last year only and did nothing in earlier two years,” Sharma maintained adding, “This means that in those two years the concerned Deputy Commissioner did not monitoring of the work due to which despite availability of the balance money, work was not completed.”
He took the issue of over delay of Apsara road project and said that the delay has almost killed the business and trade there which even time and developments can’t revive as reduction of footfall in that market can’t be regained and the shops worth crores of rupees value are not even in the condition to earn money sufficient to repay the bank loans.
On parking slots, the Jammu Mayor said, “Which rule permitted to lay condition for Smart Parking to give 96 per cent share to the contractor and 4 per cent to JMC while roads and other infrastructure is provided by the Urban Local Body. Even the contractor concerned has failed to install what he was asked to do.”
Sharma said that diaphragm wall of Tawi Barrage should be completed before the rainy season and the City Level Advisory Forum meeting, which is done quarterly, should be conducted on monthly basis.
“There remains much of money in convergence which is given to other departments, and in future meetings the officials/officers from convergence departments should also be called in the meeting because if we have to do developments in the city it should be done on single orientation of all the departments for better results,” the Mayor continued.
He said that social media handle password of Tourism Department is not with Jammu wing of the Department due to which events of Jammu are not uploaded.
“They have made it different for Jammu under the name of Jammu Tourism and have kept that of J&K Tourism for Kashmir. As people search events on J&K Tourism platform they find nothing in Jammu,” he said and added that the media handle shall be given to a nodal officer and he/she be given the password for uploading events of Jammu also.