Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 30: After a gap of two years, the construction work of the longest bridge over River Chenab at Pargwal in Khour Sub Division of Jammu district, bordering Pakistan, was started today, giving the villagers some hope of early completion of the strategically important bridge.
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The work on the this vital bridge was started in September 2018 by the contracting agency, a joint venture of M/s VKG & Associates and M/s MBZ Constructions- Chandigarh and Ukraine based agencies under the supervision of PW(R&B Department) after Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself kick-started the project through virtual mode.
The date of the completion of the work was fixed as February 2021. However, the work was abandoned by the contractors on April 2020 after J&K Administration failed to clear their liability worth Rs 15 crore (against the executed work) despite repeated requests by the contractors.
Speaking to Excelsior, Naib Sarpanch of Pargwal Rockey Gupta said that after a lot of struggle, the people of the area got sanctioned this bridge worth Rs 206 crore on January 18, 2016 but the project was started on March 2018 after a delay of over 2 years. “However, it is unfortunate that due to poor funding from the Government, the work on the project could not run smoothly and was abandoned by the contractors due to non-payment of their dues.
He said the importance of this bridge can be gauzed from the fact that over people of 40 villages of the Pargwal area which are exposed to frequent Pakistani firing from two sides, can escape safely to Jourian through this bridge and reach Khour Sub Divisional headquarters within 30 minutes as the bridge will reduce the distance between Pargwal and Khour Tehsil/Sub- Divisional headquarters from 55 km to mere 14 km.
“But despite knowing its importance, neither the Union Government nor J&K Government take this project seriously, otherwise this bridge would have completed till date,” Gupta said, while adding that they are thankful to EXCELSIOR NEWS which highlighted the issue and finally, the work of this vital bridge has been started again.
However, he demanded that the next deadline of the project be fixed and it is ensured by the J&K Government that the project is completed this time without any disruption and delay due to funding or any other issue.
Pertinently, EXCELSIOR NEWS had exclusively highlighted on May 27, 2022 that the work on the Pargwal Bridge has been abandoned by the concerned contractors as the PW(R&B) Department failed to clear their payment of about Rs 15 crore against executed works.
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