Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 12

A ‘super review’ of the Border Roads Organisation’s (BRO) task force responsible for maintaining the strategic Manali-Sarchu road in Himachal Pradesh has revealed huge difference between targets and achievements, besides raising several other audit objects.The report says that the achievements in road surfacing and bridge construction were as low as 20.83 per cent and 13.05 per cent, respectively, in the past three years. In a particular year, despite targets no road re-surfacing was done.On the other hand, there have also been instances where the task force was able to deliver more than its stipulated target in bridge construction and road formation. The super review report, which has also raised some other audit issues, was finalised in August and covers three fiscals from 2013-14 to 2015-16. BRO’s Project Deepak is responsible for construction and maintenance of strategic roads in Himachal. The Manali-Sarchu road is part of the Manali-Leh highway that provides an alternate link to Ladakh. The part of the highway lying in Ladakh is looked after by a different BRO project.It has also been observed that works sanctioned in 1989 to upgrade a stretch of the road was to be completed in 1992, but 24 years later the progress of the job is 75 per cent. A permanent 100-metre bridge over Chandra river sanctioned in 2008 was supposed to be complete by 2012, but till March 2016, only 13.64 per cent work has been completed. Several other bridge and road construction works have been delayed by several years beyond their target dates.Expenditure to the tune of Rs 928.15 lakh has been rendered infructuous on account of five works being foreclosed due to various technical and administrative reasons. In 14 cases, the review has pointed out heavy mismatch between physical progress and financial expenditure.
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