Urban development, Housing and Town and Country Planning minister, Sarveen Chaudhary on Friday said no compromise would be tolerated in the quality of construction work and complete transparency should be maintained in the departmental affairs.

Presiding over a review meeting of HIMUDA here, Chaudhary directed to expedite the work on HIMUDA projects which were either not started or were going on a slow pace.”The demand of housing and commercial units was huge. A comprehensive plan should be prepared to meet the housing demand of the people as they had great expectations from the department,” she said.
Chaudhary said that HIMUDA has developed 17,229 houses, flats and plots so far while construction of 146 flats and development of 181 plots was under progress. Moreover, four housing colonies at Sheel, Dharmapur, Trilokpur and Rajwari were in pipeline.

The minister directed to prepare plan for the first 100 days highlighting the priority of works with the projection of cost and resource management. She also directed the department for launching a cleanliness drive in the state.Additional Chief Secretary, UD, TCP and Housing, TarunKapoor said it was a big challenge before the HIMUDA to fulfill the housing demand of the people especially the poor and middle income group.

He underscored the need for planned and systematic development of housing colonies with new design and specifications. CEO, HIMUDA, Dinesh Kashyap, Chief Engineer, Umesh Sharma and other officers of the department attended the meeting.

Later in the review meeting of urban development department, the minister emphasised the need for best utilisation of the funds and speeding up various projects so that these could be completed in a stipulated time period and allotted budget. She said close coordination should be ensured with the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) for effective implementation of various schemes.

The minister said that there was the need to monitor and execute centrally and state sponsored schemes expeditiously as these were time-bound. She said five clusters would set up for solid waste management at Baddi, Hamirpur, Kangra, Shimla and Mandi. She directed to work in close co-ordination with Shimla and Dharamshala Municipal Corporations which were developed as smart cities.