Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 20: Residents of Kadmal area in Katra today staged a demonstration, blocking the Katra-Jammu road for hours against the planned diversion of the village spring water.
Scores of demonstrators, particularly women, gathered on the Katra-Jammu road, early in the morning and started raising slogans against the Jal Shakti Department (JSD) for tapping the water from their village spring to supply it to the other villages.
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A woman protestor said, “They (JSD) have been making efforts for long to supply our water to the people in other villages. We won’t let that happen come what may.”
Another protestor said, “The Jal Shakti Department has been doing this despite assuring us the other day that they will not supply our water to any other village. This attitude is highly intolerable.”
Clarifying villagers’ doubt, a PHE official, who arrived at the protest site after blockage of road for hours, claimed, “We’d actually planned to tap the spring water at source, store it in a large storage facility, and then provide it to the Kadmal residents itself. But if the villagers are upset with our plans, we will stop this project after consultation with the senior officers of the department and District administration.”
He even asked the villagers to project their grievances before the senior officers in the District Administration to shelve the project immediately.
“We have no objection to shelving the project on the direction of the senior ups,” he said.
On his assurance, the villagers called off the protest and let the vehicular movement resume on the Katra-Jammu raod.
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