Ozukum urges PWD dept. to mull over alternative housing projects

Our Correspondent
Kohima, July 28 (EMN): Minister of Public Works Department (PWD) (Housing and Mechanical), Tongpang Ozukum on Thursday stated that Nagaland government cannot provide funds for projects ‘all the time’ as it is a resource-crunch state and mooted the idea of looking for alternatives and other projects with Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO).

Dwelling on the recently concluded Indian Building Congress (IBC) conclave and seminar in Kohima, he also urged the PWD Housing department to pursue the same with new ideas and innovative ways of construction by tying up with the IBC officials. He challenged the department to be the first to use prefabricated structures, rather than others.

He was addressing the inauguration of a furniture godown for the department of Works and Housing below PWD Office Complex, Kohima as special guest.

Ozukum said there were many projects in the state that have been ongoing for over 20 years, and therefore asked the department to take a call to either ‘continue or do away with the projects’.

 “If we are unable to complete, if we cannot provide funds, if there are no resources, I think we have to take calls and cannot just linger on like this,” he said.

The minister also stated that maintaining the assets that have been created is another problem.

 Ozukum said the department is generating revenue from the rental houses in Dimapur but has not raised funds for the maintenance of the building.

Ozukum further informed that the Tamil Nadu government had allotted 1000 sq. ft of land for construction of a Naga patient’s house at Vellore free of cost, which would otherwise have cost INR 4 crore. He also informed that the land at Shillong, Meghalaya had been cleared.

Earlier, Tiatemsu Ao, Superintending Engineer, PWD (H) Circle No 1, said the old furniture store was constructed in 1959 and DPR for construction of the furniture godown with INR 47.37 lakh (SOR 2004) was prepared in 2006; the work order was issued to M/s Vertex Construction in November 2006 while the budget provision in 2006-2007 was INR 1 lakh.

He stated that the DPR was revised to INR 72.35 lakh (SOR 2006) while the budget provision till 2011-12 was INR 8.50 lakh. However, the actual work could not start and only the steps leading to the store were constructed.

However, the DPR was revised to INR 177.44 lakh (SOR 2016) with a budget provision 2021-22 of INR 20 lakh. Dismantling and construction started in June 2021 and it was completed in May, 2022 with the budget provision (2022-23) at INR 148.94 lakh.

A short speech was also delivered by Engineer-in-chief, Kahuli Sema.