Govt replaces project team of RAMKY for fast-track NHW construction
The government has replaced the project management team of the RAMKY company with the ICICI Bank to carry out the 4-laning of Srinagar- Banihal stretch of the Srinagar-Jammu Highway on fast-track basis.
The government has fixed deadline of June 2016 for 4-laning of the stretch of the highway.Minister of Roads and Buildings, Syed Altaf Bukhari, said they have got the project management team for the 4-laning of the highway replaced from RAMKY with the ICICI Bank.
He said the decision was taken after RAMKY missed the deadlines over completion of the project.
“The new project management team of the ICICI Bank will also upgrade the old highway. We have given them the deadline of 45-days,” he added.
According to officials of Roads and Buildings (R&B) department, 4- laning of Banihal-Srinagar stretch of the Highway has got delayed by years.
The construction was scheduled to be completed in October 2014, but despite repeated reminders by the government, it is yet to be completed. The cost of the project is over Rs 12,000 crores.
Due to delay over the 4-laning of the project, a large stretch of the Highway is dotted with pot-holes and unpaved roads making the journey to the towns along the highway an arduous task.
Owing to heavy movement of traffic on the road, it remains often blocked due to delay in the completion of its expansion.
Earlier last Thursday, Bukhari during a review meeting to monitor the progress of work on the highway took a strong notice over delay in completion of the project saying it has put the people through a number of inconveniences.
He had said government can’t leave the people to suffer due to laxity of the executing agency in completing the project.”
The RAMKAY management has earlier claimed that the delay was due to difficulties in acquisition of land to expand it.
Chief Engineer Roads and Buildings (R&B), Satish Razdan said the government has taken a serious note of the slow pace of construction of the highway.
He said they have been assured that the 4-laning of the highway will be completed by June 2016 while 70 percent of the project will be completed by September this year.
