Pending development works across the state would be started by ensuring social distancing after the first phase of the lockdown concludes on Tuesday.
This was decided in a meeting attended by ministers and top officials of construction-related departments and chaired by Deputy Chief Minster Keshav Prasad Maurya on Monday.
Giving guidelines to officials on ensuring social distancing, Maurya asked the officials at Vishveshariya Bhawan to sanitise machines and gadgets used on sites to prevent spread of coronavirus.
He gave clearance for restarting the work on Purvanchal Expressway, Bundelkhand Expressway, Gorakhpur Link Expressway and other projects taken up by the Yogi Adityanath government.
Maurya directed that local authorities to ensure that workers and their kin got proper and nutritious food.
“Where residential facilities cannot be provided to workers at construction sites, measures should be taken to keep them in nearby places and ensure hygiene and social distancing,” Maurya said.
UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) Chief Executive Officer Awanish Awasthi said that adequate material and work force were available to restart work on these projects.
It was decided to divide the work separately so that proper sanitisation and social distancing could be maintained.
“If desilting of canal has to be taken up for 500 metres, then work should be divided into 100 metre segments so that social distancing could be ensured. Likewise, work should be first started at the place where labourers stay at the same place. Besides expressways, works relating to highways, railway over bridges (RoB), and various other projects would also be taken up,” he said.
Besides Maurya, Jal Shakti Minister Mahendra Singh, Rural Engineering Minister Brajesh Pathak, Urban Development Minister Ashutosh Tandon along with heads and incharges of Nirman Nigam, Bridge Corporation, Jal Nigam, Rural Engineering, UPEIDA, PWD and other departmental chiefs and senior officers attended the meeting.
The deputy chief minister also inspected the community kitchens run by the Public Works Department and directed officials to ensure cleanliness and hygiene while preparing and giving food packets to the needy. He also lauded the efforts of PWD officials in this direction.