Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has sought immediate release of Rs 300 crore from the Centre to the Border Roads Organization (BRO) for repairing the vast network of damaged roads in calamity-hit Uttarakhand.
Bahuguna met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi on Tuesday and said that there was widespread resentment over the slow progress due to lack of funds with the BRO in reconstruction of major roads damaged in the June calamity, an official release said.
The amount has already been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Uttarakhand headed by the Prime Minister himself.
Bahuguna said Singh was informed that Congress MLAs were prepared to stage dharna in Delhi on the issue and had called it off only at his (CM's) behest.
The BRO has been entrusted with the task of repairing 1510 km of roads in the hill state whereas the National Highways Authority is in charge of rebuilding 750 km of roads.
The Chief Minister, who had earlier met Union Surface Transport and Highways Minister Oscar Fernandes, told Singh as to what transpired at his meeting with the Minister and asked him to expedite the release of funds to the BRO so that road reconstruction work could be completed before the start of the Char Dham Yatra season in April-May.
At his meeting with Fernandes, Bahuguna opposed the suggestion that road repair be handed over to a public sector organization and insisted that the National Highways Authority and BRO were best suited for the job.
Handing over the job to other agencies would lead to avoidable delay, with an adverse impact on the tourism sector of Uttarakhand, the Chief Minister said.
Bahuguna also informed Singh that 10 new divisions of the PWD have been constituted to ensure timely completion of road projects worth Rs 2000 crore funded by the World Bank and ADB.
The Prime Minister has promised to speedily resolve the issue by releasing the required funds to the BRO as early as possible.
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