By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN 5 Sep: Chief Secretary Om Prakash, and Tourism Secretary Dilip Javalkar on Saturday carried out on the spot inspection of the reconstruction works at Kedarnath Dham. The Chief Secretary also inspected Shankaracharya Samadhi, the passage way from Divyashila to Samadhi, Helipad for MI- 26 Choppers, and the ghats of the rivers Saraswati and Mandakini.
During the inspection, Chief Secretary Om Prakash directed the executive agencies involved in the reconstruction work to expedite the work and ensure high quality work. He said that the reconstruction work ought to be completed within the prescribed time limit. The boundary wall and the mandal wall are under construction currently around the Adi Shankaracharya Samadhi. The boundary wall’s proposed height is 12 metres and of the mandal wall 3 metres. A 48 meter linga and 3.6 meter wide passage is also being constructed from Divyashila to Samadhi, on the raft has been laid but it is now being concreted. In this regard, the Chief Secretary directed Vikas Rana, the manager of Jindal Social Works to complete the work related to the Shankaracharya Samadhi and Passage by 31 December.
The construction of the 504 metres long and 5 metres wide Aastha Path on the Saraswati river has been completed and steps have also been constructed for the ghat. Lightning work is to be done on the steps leading to the ghats. While in all, 5 viewpoints are to be constructed around the ghats area out of which work has been completed for 3 viewpoints. In this regard, the Chief Secretary directed the JSW officials complete the construction of the remaining 2 viewpoints by the end of September and also complete the ghats beautification work by October.
Chief Secretary directed Superintendent Engineer Mukesh Parmar of PWD to remove 3 damaged cottages of Garhwal Mandal Development Corporation on MI-26 helipad within 10 days. The MI-26 Helipad currently has to be expanded enough to easily enable landing of Chinook helicopters. DDMA is constructing the bridge at Garudchatti which is expected to be completed soon.
The Chief Secretary directed Executive Engineer DDMA Praveen Karnwal to complete the bridge construction work by 31 December. The Jindal Group was to construct 5 buildings for the Tirtha Purohit, out of which 2 buildings have been completed and handed over to the district administration. The Chief Secretary gave instructions to complete the remaining three buildings by 15 October and hand them over to the district administration. Besides, instructions were given to complete the pending works of Meditation Cave within the stipulated time. This is the cave where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spent one night on his previous visit to Kedarnath last year before the last round of the general polls.
District Magistrate Rudraprayag, Vandana was also present on the occasion.
