Jammu, Oct 27: The top brass of the Indian Army on Friday held ‘manthan’ over road connectivity and better infrastructure for all three regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
A two-day Northern Command Annual Road Conference was held at Headquarters, Northern Command, Udhampur, chaired by Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, GOC-in-C, Northern Command.
The Conference aimed at taking stock of the ongoing road connectivity projects in J&K and identifying bottlenecks, so as to arrive at way forward to provide better road infrastructure to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions.
The Army and BRO are major contributors towards development of roads in Jammu and Kashmir.
The main focus of the road infrastructure development in Northern Command by Army and BRO is to improve the all weather connectivity to cut-off, far-flung and remote areas in the state.
Development of connectivity infrastructure by Army authorities not only meets operational requirements, but also local aspirations, thereby contributing to the socio-economic development of the local populace.
The improved roads directly contribute towards employment generation, marketing of produce and tourism.
The first day of the event was attended by Senior Military Officers of the Northern Command and Chief Engineers of BRO Projects.
On the second day of the conference, issues requiring synergy with civil administration were discussed, wherein prominent civil government officials of the state, NHAI and NHIDCL attended the Conference.
Issues related to land compensation, forest clearance, road alignments and joint surveys were discussed and mechanisms worked out for early clearances and payments.
The Army Commander emphasised on quality control, long term planning, induction of technology, best practices and optimum utilisation of budget to ensure that the infrastructure development is fast-tracked and helps the local population.
