458 more languishing projects involving Rs 789 cr investment approved for funding

Principal Secretary Finance, Navin K. Choudhary chairing a meeting on Wednesday.
Principal Secretary Finance, Navin K. Choudhary chairing a meeting on Wednesday.

*Locations identified for establishment of new degree colleges

Excelsior Correspondent

SRINAGAR, Oct 24: The 3rd meeting of the High-Powered Committee (HPC) on languishing projects was convened here today under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary Finance, Navin K Choudhary.
The Committee cleared 458 languishing projects involving an amount of Rs 789 crore for funding through Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC) Ltd.
Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Shailendra Kumar; Commissioner/Secretary, PWD, Khurshid Ahmed Shah; Secretary, PHE/I&FC and DMRRR, Farooq Ahmed Shah; Secretary Education, AK Sahu, Special Officer on Monitoring Flagship Programmes in Planning Department, Doifode Sagar Dattatray and other officers of the Finance Department and Chief Engineers of various departments attended the meeting.
Giving details, Principal Secretary Finance said in today’s meeting HPC cleared 196 projects of PHE Department costing Rs 224.26 crore, 169 projects of R&B Department costing Rs 271.30 crore, 76 projects of Irrigation & Flood Control Department costing Rs 188.77 crore, 13 projects of School Education Department costing Rs 6 crore and 4 projects of Industries & Commerce Department costing Rs 98 crore.
Navin said the approved projects would be funded for time-bound completion through Jammu and Kashmir Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (JKIDFC) Ltd.
Pertinently, in its three meetings convened so far, the High-Powered Committee has cleared 1014 projects in various sectors across the State involving an investment of Rs 2171 crore.
The Principal Secretary Finance said the meetings of the HPC would be held at regular intervals to ensure early processing and approval of all such projects which are languishing for want of funds. He said the 4th meeting of the Committee shall be convened immediately after opening of offices in Jammu.
Meanwhile, High-Powered Committee for identifying locations and operationalization of new degree colleges met under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary, Finance, Navin K Choudhary.
The Committee identified 28 locations across Jammu and Kashmir for establishing new degree colleges which will start operations from 2020-21 academic session.
During the meeting, Navin directed the Higher Education Department to immediately kickstart feasibility studies in the areas where the State land is available so that the construction work can be started at the earliest.
“The Finance Department will release Rs 1 crore each in favor of these colleges so that the process of operationalization and construction of these new colleges is started immediately,” the Finance Secretary said.
The Committee also considered other demands and asked the Higher Education Department to ascertain the feasibility and requirement of those demands. Navin said the other demands will be considered in next meeting of the Committee.
Commissioner Secretary, Higher Education, Sarita Chouhan, Director Codes, Mohammad Rafi Andrabi, Director Budget, Imtiyaz Ahmad Wani, Director, Prospective Planning, Pervez Kakroo, besides other officers also attended the meeting.

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