A road without a pothole in Kashmir is a rare sight. A long winter has left them worse, making commuting a daily torture, courtesy the government-contractor tiff.
A Public Works Department official said that Kashmir and Jammu regions each have been allotted Rs 200 crore for road works this financial year, double the previous year’s allocation.“This means we had to start early to spend every penny. Otherwise, unspent funds lapse. But we have not spent a rupee yet,” he said.
He said boycott of works by contractors, who are demanding payment of pending Rs 1000 crore, was the major impediment.
“We had requested the government to pay them money but no concrete action has been initiated in this matter,” he said.Chief engineer Roads and Buildings Kashmir region Sami Arif blamed the boycott of work by contractors for bad roads.
“But now they have agreed to resume repairs of roads. In fact, work has been started at some places. But for the past two days we have halted work due to inclement weather as the dip in temperature causes damage to macadamized portion of the road,” he said.
Meanwhile, Joint Contractor’s Coordination Committee (JCCC), an amalgam of contractor associations, has again demanded release of Rs 1024-crore pending bill.
“We have resumed only patchwork of roads, for the people of Kashmir who are suffering a lot due to potholed roads,” said co-chairman JCCC Ghulam Jeelani Purza.
He said the government needs to first pay contractors, then talk of developmental works.
“On papers they claim to have started work on various languishing projects running in several thousand crore of rupees, but on ground there are no funds. Contractors have no money to invest in these projects. They are fooling the people,” he added.
