After long discussions, field surveys, expert reports and the blue print of Concept Report prepared by a Gujarat-based private consultancy for Greater Udhampur Master Plan, the State Government finally issued an SRO in July last by dint of which Udhampur Development Authority was constituted and the Greater Udhampur Master Plan was notified. Nearly 70 villages have been declared to fall within the proposed Master Plan and the township was supposed to be provided with basic infrastructure. But what we actually find on the ground is that inertia has overtaken the Urban Development Department because in the context of taking the project in hand not a blade of grass has moved during last eight months. The Concept Draft Plan is collecting dust while ugly and haphazard constructions are going on in the identified area of the Master Plan. Nobody stops the people who are violating the layout of the Master Plan just because they manage to make things go. The bureaucrats supposed to be dealing with the execution of the Plan do not show any interest. The MLA from Udhampur has been pursuing the matter with the authorities but he is receiving cold shoulder. We hope that the Urban Development Department, the main agency that has to execute the project, will not allow discrimination blur its eyesight. In normal course of things, there appears no reason why the Government should not begin work on the Master Plan now. What is the hindrance? The Government needs to come out of the syndrome of halfhearted approach to the execution of the project.
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