Bahuguna orders road tender process from Feb 15

Facing flak over the delay in starting the reconstruction work in the wake of the June 16-17 deluge, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has given directions to start the tender process for repair of roads from February 15.

"The tender shall open from February 15 to February 20," Bahuguna said chairing a high-level meeting here at secretariat on Tuesday evening.

Bahuguna said that the work of repair of roads should be taken up on a fast track mode. He added that the Chief Secretary must review the development on the weekly basis whereas the Principal Secretary PWD must personally keep a watch on the work being done in the five disaster affected districts-Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Bageshwar, Pithoragarh and Tehri.

He said that the officials concerned must camp in Delhi to complete the formalities with the officials of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as well as the World Bank.

The CM reviewed the other repair works which had already been taken up in the affected districts. He added that help must be taken from consultants and construction agencies. Bahuguna stated that transparency should be maintained while dealing with the tenders.

Modern technology should be adopted so that the work can be taken up even in the winter period.

Keeping the coming Lok Sabha elections in mind, a letter should be written to the election commission to keep the work of reconstruction of disaster affected roads separate from the election code of conduct, the CM said.