Udhampur among top 3 districts in rural road construction: Jitendra Singh

Jammu, April 2

Union Minister and BJP Candidate for the Udhampur constituency Jitendra Singh on Tuesday said Udhampur has emerged among India’s top three districts in rural road construction under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) scheme, and this has been possible only because of the prioritisation given by the Central Government in the last 10 years.

Jitendra Singh accused the Congress-led governments in the past, including the UPA government from 2004 to 2014, of following a policy of regional discrimination, as a result of which the upper hilly remote areas and far-flung peripheral panchayats of district Udhampur remained unconnected by road because these did not receive the kind of attention deserved.

“As a result of this, the people of this far-flung region had to suffer the agony and hardship of carrying their patients and the elderly members of the family physically for movement from one place to another or in a palanquin. This, in turn, also led to an increase in morbidity as well as mortality because of a lack of healthcare facilities and accessibility to health centres,” he added.

Addressing a series of public meetings during his election tour of the upper reaches of district Udhampur, including areas such as Basantgarh, Lati, Gordy, Landar among others, Jitendra Singh said, “Because of Udhampur’s typical topography, the road construction work should have been undertaken several decades ago. However, as a deliberate design it was not done. The PMGSY scheme for the rural road construction was also introduced by NDA-1 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee but not carried forward with the same spirit by the successive governments.”