CM announces ₹1-cr to PWD, seeks opening of all roads in Rohru by August 15

While presiding over a meeting on Tuesday evening to evaluate the rehabilitation and restoration efforts in Rohru, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu announced an allocation of ₹1 crore to the Public Works Department to expedite the efforts to restore roads in the Rohru assembly segment.

He directed the officers concerned to prepare a comprehensive strategy for opening all roads in the assembly segment by August 15. He analysed the reports of the damages caused to public works, jal Shakti, electricity, horticulture and agriculture departments’ infrastructure, and losses to private property.

Sukhu also announced the release an additional amount of ₹1.2 crore to restore damaged roads in the development blocks of Rohru, Chauhara, Jubbal and Kotkhai. During the meeting, the chief minister emphasised the unimpeded transportation of apple produce to the markets, directing the officers to work around the clock to facilitate the farmers for transporting their produce.

The chief minister stressed on constructing temporary roads wherever required, adding that all the link roads should be made fully operational by August 15. He sought a report from the PWD and deputy commissioner about the progress.

Sukhu assured that there won’t be any financial constraint for restoring normalcy in the disaster-affected regions.

He said that a loss of approximately ₹340 crore has been evaluated due to heavy rains in the Rohru assembly constituency. PWD has incurred losses amounting to ₹155 crore and the losses of revenue department are pegged at ₹84 crore. The jal shakti department has suffered losses of nearly ₹69 crore and horticulture department has suffered damages around ₹23 crore. The losses to other departments are approximately ₹9 crore.

In the last meeting, it was reported that 34 houses have been completely destroyed and 819 were partially damaged within the assembly constituency. Apart from this, the calamity has damaged 137 cow shelters and around 21,000 apple plants. As a measure of relief, a sum of ₹1.09 crore has been released to support the 120 households affected by complete or partial damage