Chairing a meeting of national highways authority here last evening, Joshi said the development of highways in Uttarakhand is in the priority list of the Centre, an official release here said.
Expressing his displeasure over the slow pace of progress of work on national highways in the hill state, the Union Minister called for effective coordination among various departments to expedite the work. In this regard, he also asked officials to constitute a monitoring committee under the Chief Secretary.
Joshi said the administration should adopt a humane approach towards farmers and other land owners while acquiring their land.
He said the land owners should be provided a justified compensation for their land. In this regard, he also suggested to establish a separate unit comprising retired experienced experts to look into the matters related to land acquisition and compensation.
He said this would help in completing the work at faster pace. He also advocated setting a time-frame for completing the projects.
Promising that there would be no dearth of funds for the projects, he said it is necessary to ensure timely completion of targeted work from the state government's side too. He said necessary steps would be taken to improve the condition of NH-72 near Chhutmalpur in Uttar Pradesh.
