Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was on Monday taken aback by the poor pace of work when he visited the under-construction Assembly complex after resuming work at the civil secretariat here in Jammu. After attending the brief ceremony in the portico of the civil secretariat building Omar went around the power corridors and interacted with his ministerial colleagues as they resumed working in their offices.

Later Omar stepped out of his office chamber and walked on foot to the project site. The security officials hurriedly covered him in different layers of protection as they marched on foot outside the civil secretariat complex.

 The foundation stone of the multi-floor Assembly complex was laid by Omar himself on July 1, 2011. In the last over 13 years the successive governments failed to complete the project.

Omar toured the complex, where officials from the Public Works Department (PWD) Roads & Buildings (R&B) Division provided a detailed briefing on the project’s various stages, timeline, and next steps.

During the inspection visit to the project site, Omar asked pointed queries to the senior officers of the project executing agency to learn more about the reasons behind the delay and the current status of the progress.

As Omar went around the assembly complex along with Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary and other cabinet colleagues he was informed by the officers that the new assembly complex may take at least two more years to get ready.

Omar when enquired about the reasons behind the delay of the project was informed by the senior officials that the non-availability of the funds was the primary reason. Due to prolonged delay the original cost of the project initially pegged at around 110 crores has already exceeded 200 crores.

On ground zero, the construction work was started in August 2011. Initially, the project was estimated to be built at a cost of around 113 crores in a stipulated period.

According to the project engineers, who remained in charge from time to time the work on the project was going on smoothly till 2015 but the same hit the roadblock during the BJP-PDP alliance government in office. The alliance government raised certain specific queries related to the administrative and financial approval before giving their formal nod to the revised estimates.