Villagers accord warm welcome to Ranjit, March ‘09 projected as date for CCpur-Tuivai road

SINGZOL (CCpur), May 30 : Come March next year and the construction work of the road connecting Churachandpur district headquarters and Tuivai on the Manipur-Mizoram border will be completed.

Speaking to the villagers of Singzol, who rolled out the red carpet for the Minister, K Ranjit said that the road connecting Chura-chandpur district head- quarters and Tuivai, covering a distance of 162 kms, will be upgraded to a State Highway and the construction work will be finalised by March next year.

Significantly K Ranjit is the first Minister to ever visit Singzol.

The construction work of the road was taken up after the North East Council released a sum of Rs 82 crores in 2005 and the actual process of the work started in 2006. Different contractors were engaged in the construction of the road.

The Minister was accompanied by the Thanlon AC MLA Hangkhanlian, Chief Engineer of the PWD Dr G Tonsana and media persons during the tour.

The touring team was greeted by a black topped road over a stretch of 20 kilometres on the Churachandpur-Singhat road while the BMW work on the remaining stretch of 14 kilometres was also found completed.

Road widening work as well as construction of culvert along the route from Singhat to Tuivai was in progress as the team traversed through.

However the Works Minister was visibly irritated on seeing that work on the stretch of the road awarded to a special contractor identified as Ch Rajgopal had not made any progress.

Besides instructing that the work should be taken up immediately, the Minister warned that if no progress is witnessed then the special contractor would be black listed.

The road widening work as well as the construction of culverts started in 2006 and the amount released so far is Rs 19 crores.

Striking a positive tone, the Works Minister said that construction of the road will be taken up after the Monsoon from September/October this year.

March is the tentative deadline set for the completion of the CCpur-Tuivai road, said the Minister and urged the people to extend all possible co-operation.

The objective of the SPF Government is equitable development of the hills and plain, said Ranjit and added that the CCpur-Tuivai road is a step towards this.

All along the way villagers came out to greet the Minister and his team and at a village called Tongpam, Ranjit inaugurated a water supply scheme, while the foundation stone of a guest house was laid at Singzol. The estimated cost of guest house is pegged at Rs 1 crore.

Though the foundation of the said guest house was built earlier, the foundation stone for the same was laid by Ranjit belatedly. On seeing that the foundation for the guest house was sub-standard, the Minister instructed that the work be started afresh. Ranjit and the team also inspected the condition of the Tuivai bridge.

Though black topping process is on along the 34 kms stretch from Churachandpur to Singhat, the Minister was not at all pleased to find the work being carried out over a 800 metre stretch. Ranjit instructed that the work be started anew and added that no bill will be issued pending the fresh work. The task of constructing the CCpur to Tuivai road was initially entrusted on the BRO, but due to man power shortage, the same was taken over by the State PWD.

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