Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today chaired a high – level joint meeting to clear the decks for the prestigious Ujh-Multipurpose (National) Project in district Kathua of Jammu & Kashmir.
The meeting was attended by senior officials of Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, senior officials of the Union Territory Government of Jammu & Kashmir and senior officials of the State Government of Punjab. While the Jal Shakti Ministry was represented by Minister of State Jal Shakti Rattan Lal Kataria, Union Secretary Jal Shakti U P Singh and others, the Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory team was led by Advisor to UT LG Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Commissioner Secretary PHE Jammu & Kashmir, Ajeet Kumar Sahu and others.
Pertinent to mention that the Ujh-Multipurpose Project had been held up for several decades and was revived after intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Since then, it was being constantly followed up by Dr Jitendra Singh and at his behest, a high level meeting was held last year between the then Union Minister for Water Resources Nitin Gadkari and the then Governor Jammu & Kashmir Satya Pal Malik.
It was decided at that meeting that an alternate Canal System or Command System will be planned and DPR accordingly modified so that the surplus water not utilized by the parts of Kathua district, should not inadvertently flow into Pakistan.
At today’s meeting, accordingly, it was decided that the much awaited Ujh-Multipurpose Project will start immediately and appropriate mechanism will be developed to utilize the surplus water on the Indian side itself. For this purpose, the Union Territory Government of Jammu & Kashmir also offered to come forward with a suitable DPR.
He said, with the Shahpur-Kandi project having already taken off, when the Ujh-Multipurpose project also becomes functional, the entire Kandi belt in district Kathua and adjoining parts of district Samba will become fully irrigated and, in fact irrigation surplus and power surplus.
The current estimated cost of the project is Rs.5,850 crore and its expected timeline of completion is over six years. The project will store around 781 Million Cubic meter of waters of river Ujh (a tributary of river Ravi). After completion of the project, utilization of waters of Eastern Rivers allotted to India as per the Indus Water Treaty would be enhanced by utilizing of the flow that presently goes across border to Pakistan.
The stage-I of the project costing about 5850 crore has already been accepted by Advisory Committee of DoWR, RD & GR, Ministry of Jal Shakti and will now be presented to Expenditure Finance Committee for firming up the funding arrangements.
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