Kohima Bureau
Kohima, April 10 (EMN): Thirty-two days after promising to ‘repair, renovate and fill up potholes in all the district headquarters’ of Nagaland, the People’s Democratic Alliance (PDA) government has spelled out its action plan.
The announcement was made by Minister for PWD Tongpang Ozukum in presence of Chief Engineer PWD (R&B), Limadongdang Jamir during a press conference at his official residence on Tuesday.
The department will be running against time with just 28 days left to fulfil the government’s promise. In the PDA’s first cabinet meeting on March 8, it had promised to deliver said road repairs and renovation within 60 days.
Ozukum maintained that road sector being one of the major concerns of the people, the government declared it as one of its priorities and accordingly Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio had announced that all the district headquarter roads will be repaired within 60 days.
He said the government as well as the department is giving much importance to fulfil its promise and working hard to ensure completion within stipulated time. Since the works will be spread to roads inside colonies and wards in all district headquarters, Ozukum has appealed citizens to cooperate with the department officials and bear with inconveniences.
The chief engineer, Limadongdang Jamir informed that the actual projection for requirement of fund for 217 km of roads in the 12 district headquarters was INR 102 cr. He was grateful that the state government has allotted INR 50 cr. to carry out the works out of which it has already sanctioned INR 25 cr. for the first phase of works.
He said that the minister concerned had a meeting with all executive engineers from 12 districts recently during which they listed out the “top priority road which needs repairing and renovation in each district headquarters”.
Jamir further informed that it has worked out on all the requirements of materials, road rollers, bitumen, stone chips, workers etc. In some districts the workers have already started filling up the potholes, he informed.
Jamir said the requirement of the bitumen has been placed before the manufacturers and was hopeful of receiving the same on April 11 in Dimapur which will be dispatched to the district headquarters. Then works ‘will be carried out in full swing’, he said.
On the mobilisation of machineries, Jamir informed that with works being taken up simultaneously in all the 12 districts there are some shortage of machineries.
Presently, he said 39 machineries have been hired from the Mechanical department wherein road rollers have been deployed in all the district headquarters; and it will be hiring other machineries from the private parties/firms.
When asked why the government has taken so long to start works after making the announcement on March 8, Ozukum said: “As a new government and inheriting such a big deficit, we had to start from the scratch...and constraints of funds which could not be mobilised on time (sic).”
He also added that there were problems in mobilisation of resources and materials in some districts which have to be transported from other districts.
They also stated their apprehension on the onset of monsoon which could hamper the bituminous works. They further informed that majority of the works will be carried out during the night and sought the help and cooperation of the people in all districts.
