Vikas Sharma
Once again the priorities of the J&K Administration are going misplaced as the Union Territory suffers artificial scarcity of basic raw materials, otherwise abundantly available, for keeping the construction works of many prestigious development projects at bay. The resulting inordinate delays keep the projects' far behind the schedules deprive the people of J&K of the immense benefits besides many-fold cost spill-over.
The prestigious AIIMS project at Vijaypur in Jammu has been facing a severe crunch on the availability of building material at the site due to which the project has been slowed down unreasonably. A number of AIIMS hospitals were approved by Central Government in many states in the country. One of them was the AIIMS for the Jammu division which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister himself. All other projects in other states are moving ahead at a fast pace but AIIMS at Jammu is languishing far behind not due to cash crunch or paucity of funds but due to the ridiculous fact that building material in the shape of minor minerals is not available to the Companies executing the project due to surprising and ridiculous policies being adopted by the State administration as far as mining of minor minerals for building material is taken into consideration.
AIIMS Jammu is a fabulous gift handed over to the UT of Jammu & Kashmir by Central Government and the foundation stone of the project was laid down by Prime Minister himself who had assured that this Project will revolutionize the health care facilities in the Jammu division. But as one passes through the construction site at Vijaypur in Samba district one can observe construction activities on both sides of the road going on but at a snail's pace. When contacted nor the agencies executing the project are forthcoming with any response nor are the officers at the helm of affairs on Governments behalf responding. But as per reports, the work is going on at a very slow pace is due to the non-availability of gravel, sand etc which are being sourced from Kathua district and due to certain illogical policies of the Geology department coupled with certain Court directives minor minerals though being available in abundance in Samba and Jammu districts are not being supplied to this prestigious Project.
The Central Government is committed to the overall development of the UT of Jammu & Kashmir. A number of Projects to develop the UT as a model for the Country to emulate have been sanctioned but if non-availability of basic building materials is the cause of the delay of such prestigious and important projects there is some major flaw in the policy and its execution some hard and immediate policy decisions are required to be made by UT administration with no response from Government agencies as well as executing agencies some serious actions are required at the highest level to set things right and that too very soon. Otherwise the creditability of the Central Government will be at stake.
