HC slams govt for delay in Gondal bridges’ repair

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Friday pulled up the state govt for unnecessarily roping in various departments and causing delay in repairing work of century-old two bridges in Gondal town.The bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee directed the govt to hold a meeting of director of archaeology, convenor of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and all other stake holders and decide a timeline for completion of the project as well as evaluation of the detailed project report that the Gondal municipality has come up with for renovation of the old bridges.The HC has been hearing a PIL seeking repairs and renovation of the old bridges, which are in dilapidated condition. With the HC interference, heavy vehicle movement has been stopped and the urban development and urban housing department decided to forward the detailed project report for the bridge repairs to the principal secretary of sports, youth and cultural activities for getting it evaluated by two independent agencies and for roping in the archaeology department, which falls under the principal secretary.This did not go well with the bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee which questioned, “What kind of approach is this? This is kind of buying time. This is how you create a kind of web from where you cannot come out. It becomes spider’s web. you are the urban development department. You are responsible to see that this development takes place in lawful manner. If you want to approach dept of archaeology, why should you go through principal secretary of sports, youth and cultural activities? This is kind of red-tapism, nothing else. This is kind of just buying time.”The bench directed the urban development department to directly contact the director of archaeology for speedy completion of the project.
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