Budget to give major infra push towards transforming power, road sectors in JK

Srinagar, Apr 11: The budget 2023-24 will give a major infrastructural push to four core areas of health, drinking water, power and road connectivity aimed at providing succour to the common people and improving developmental parameters of UT at the national level.
The budget has earmarked funds for providing Functional Household Tap Connections to all 18.36 lakh households of Jammu and Kashmir by 2023- 24 with a minimum of 55 litres per capita per day (LPCD) drinking water supply of prescribed quality (confirming to BIS 10500) on a regular, longterm and sustainable basis.
About sixty water supply schemes are likely to be completed during 2023-24. To bring efficiency in planning and revenue collection, the government will introduce digitalization of consumer records and implementation of an online billing systems in entire Jammu and Kashmir.
The construction of prestigious Tawi Barrage, an artificial lake project which will boost tourism of Jammu city, will be completed during 2023-24.
According to the budget document, 6000 Kilometer of blacktopping of roads is expected to be achieved during 2023-24 under all schemes. Besides, 353 new projects worth Rs 1292 crore have been prioritized to be sanctioned under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF)-XXVIII with NABARD funding.
In last year’s budget, safety audit of bridges having completed 20 years was completed and now in this budget Safety audit for the bridges having completed 10 years has to be conducted during 2023-24.
J&K government is also putting efforts on maintenance of road/bridge assets and also for road safety measures.
The year 2023-24 will see further Improvement in daily hours of power supply with Urban- 24 hours and Rural 22 hours besides a reduction in transformer damage rate, a drop in Transmission and Distribution/ Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses. Under Budget 2023-24, there will be an additional length of LT/HT network (1324.073 km) besides renovation and modernization works would be undertaken at existing 220/132 KV Grid Sub Stations apart from protection/ replacement works at critical towers and insertion of new towers.
To improve power connectivity in remote areas that receive heavy snowfall, Sonamarg will be provided 24×7 power supply during winters with underground cabling through Z-Morh Tunnel besides underground cabling would be done at Nunwan for reliable power supply to holy cave of Shri Amar Nath Ji.