india

Updated: Apr 28, 2020 18:07 IST

The Uttarakhand government on Tuesday sought permission from the Union ministry of road transport and highways to bring skilled labourers from other states and raw material from outside to resume the construction of Char Dham all-weather road in the state.

Work on the 880-km Char Dham project which will connect Badrinath Dham, Kedarnath Dham, Gangotri, Yamunotri, and part of the route leading to Kailash Mansarovar yatra had stopped because of the lockdown to check the spread of coronavirus.

The permission was sought by the state cabinet ministers Madan Kaushik and Yashpal Arya representing the state government during a video conference meeting with Union minister road transport and highways Nitin Gadkar.

“We raised several issues pertaining to our state before the Union minister among which one was permission to bring back the skilled labourers who had gone to their respective states due to the lockdown. We already have our non-skilled labourers and if we get the permission to o bring back the skilled ones then we would be able to speed up the construction work of Char-Dham highway project and other road construction works in the state,” Kaushik told reporters after the video conference.

“We also sought permission to allow the transport of heavy raw materials like steel and iron rods used in highway construction from other states which were stopped due to the lockdown.”

Kaushik did not say when the state intends to resume highway construction work.

He said Gadkari also discussed a special package for the states considering the losses incurred by them due to the lockdown.

“There are certain issues like payment of salaries to drivers and other staff of the transport corporation in this lockdown. To facilitate that, we discussed a special package on which the Central minister said that based on the evaluation of the state’s situation, a special package would soon be announced,” he said.