DHARAMSHALA: After a gap of four years cabinet ministers and MLAs participated in a meeting of the District Infrastructure Scheme Advisory Committee held here on Monday. It was for the first time that MLAs and ministers participated in this meeting since Shanta Kumar became Lok Sabha MP in 2014.A meeting of this committee used to be held once every three months. It used to be headed by the local MP, but for the last four years no MLA or minister participated in it. “It is for the first time when I am heading the meeting of this committee that these number of MLAs and ministers have participated. With our government in power in state and Centre, the aim is to speed up work under centre-sponsored schemes,” said Shanta, adding that the committee was aimed at monitoring the works and usage of funds.Cabinet ministers Vipin Parmar, Sarveen Choudhary and Kishan Kapoor participated in the meeting. Among MLAs, Arun Mehra, Ravinder Kumar, Pawan Nayyar, Rita Dhiman, Rakesh Pathania and Arjun Singh were present in the meeting. Shanta said though officials of the NHAI were not members but they were also called in this meeting to know about the progress in various works, where the Centre had granted funds.“We have given a target to the district administration to complete the compensation and acquisition work by March 31. It will help the central authorities to execute the work in a proper way,” he added. Reacting to the issues raised by the Congress leaders against him, he said, “The Congress has no reason to question me, it was their government and they didn’t send any proposal for Kangra and Chamba during their tenure.”

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